Defusing the Myopia Time-Bomb

Myopia is more common – and increasing in prevalence more quickly – than ever before. Extrapolating current trends, over half of the world’s population will be myopic by 2050, and one-tenth will have high myopia (1). In some parts of the world, the prevalence is extraordinary: in South Korea, for example, 96.5 percent of 19-year-old males are myopic (2). Furthermore, myopia progression is associated with the development of sight-threatening conditions (Table 1): thus, refractive errors as low as -3.00DS significantly increase the risk of cataracts, retinal detachment and myopic macular degeneration. Indeed, recent studies (3) indicate that over 32 percent of adult Chinese-American myopes have a significant – and untreatable – risk to vision due to myopic macular degeneration. Similarly, myopic macular degeneration is now the leading cause of monocular blindness in Japan (4) and of new cases of blindness in China (5). Hence, myopia soon will be the major factor in sight loss among older people.

Table 1: Higher myopia increases the risk of ocular pathology.