Do you know: The study shows the effectiveness of the method to prevent nearsightedness
in 2025
Capping off a decade of work to stem the tide of vision loss, David Berntsen, Golden Professor of Optometry and chair of Clinical Sciences at the University of Houston College of Optometry, reports that his team’s method works to myopia not only slows down — but lasts.
The original Bifocal Lenses in Nearsighted Children (BLINK) study showed that children with myopia wearing high-power multifocal contact lenses slow their progression. Now, new results from the BLINK2 Study — which followed these children — found that the benefits continue even after the lenses are no longer used.
“???????We found that one year after stopping treatment with high value-added soft multifocal contact lenses in older teenagers, myopia progression returns to normal with no loss of treatment benefit,” reports Berntsen in JAMA Ophthalmology. The study was funded by the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health with collaborators from The Ohio State University College of Optometry.
In focus: A major issue
In leading the team at the University of Houston, Berntsen takes on a significant challenge. By 2050 almost 50% of the world (5 billion people) will be myopic. That means if you’re nearsighted and wearing glasses, it might be the person sitting next to you. Myopia is associated with an increased risk of long-term eye health problems that affect vision and can even lead to blindness.
From the initial study, high magnification multifocal contact lenses were found to be effective in slowing the growth rate of the eye, reducing how myopic children became. Because higher amounts of myopia are associated with vision-threatening eye diseases later in life, such as retinal detachment and glaucoma, controlling the progression at a young age may have future benefits.
“There has been concern that the eye may grow faster than normal when myopia control contact lenses are discontinued. Our results show that when older teenagers stop wearing these myopia control lenses, the eye returns to its growth rate it’s expected with age,” Berntsen said. .
“These follow-up results from the BLINK2 Study show that there is a sustained benefit of treatment with myopia-controlling contact lenses when discontinued at an older age,” said BLINK2 study chair Jeffrey J. Walline, associate dean for research at the University. Ohio State University College of Optometry.
Eye science
Myopia occurs when a child’s developing eyes grow too far from front to back. Instead of focusing images directly on the retina – the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye – images of distant objects are focused at a point in front of the retina. As a result, people with myopia have good near vision but poor vision.
Single vision prescription glasses and contact lenses can correct myopic vision, but they fail to treat the underlying problem, which is the eye growing longer than normal. In contrast, soft multifocal contact lenses correct myopic vision in children while simultaneously slowing the progression of myopia by slowing eye growth.
Designed like a bullseye, multifocal contact lenses focus light in two basic ways. The middle part of the lens corrects nearsightedness so that distance vision is clear, and focuses light directly on the retina. The outer part of the lens adds focusing power to bring the peripheral light into focus in front of the retina. Animal studies show that focusing light in front of the retina can slow growth. The higher the reading power, the further in front of the retina it focuses peripheral light.
BLINK once … then twice
In the original BLINK study, 294 myopic children, aged 7 to 11 years, were randomly assigned to wear single-vision contact lenses or multifocal lenses with high added power (+2.50 diopters) or medium power (+1.50 diopters). They wore the lenses during the day as often as they could comfortably do so for three years. All participants were seen at clinics at The Ohio State University, Columbus, or at the University of Houston.
After three years in the original BLINK study, children in the high-augmentation multifocal contact lens group had shorter eyes compared to the average-augmentation and single-vision groups, and also had the slowest rate of myopia progression and eye growth .
Of the original BLINK participants, 248 continued in BLINK2, where all participants wore high magnification lenses (+2.50 diopters) for two years, followed by single vision contact lenses for the third year of the study. the benefit after. discontinue treatment.
At the end of BLINK2, axial eye growth returned to age-expected rates. Although there was a slight increase in eye growth of 0.03 mm per year across all age groups after multifocal lenses were discontinued, it is important to note that the overall rate of eye growth did not differ from that of it was expected in terms of age. There was no evidence that eye growth was faster than normal.
Participants in the original BLINK advanced multifocal treatment group continued to have shorter eyes and less myopia at the end of BLINK2. Children who were switched to high-value multifocal contact lenses for the first time during BLINK2 did not catch up with those who had worn high-value lenses since the start of the BLINK Study at ages 7 to 11 years.
In contrast, studies of other myopia treatments, such as atropine drops and orthokeratology lenses designed to temporarily reshape the eye’s outermost corneal layer, have shown a rebound effect (faster than normal eye growth) after treatment has stopped .
“Our findings suggest that it is a reasonable strategy to fit children with multifocal contact lenses for myopia control at a younger age and to continue treatment until late adolescence when myopia progression slows,” said Berntsen.
For more information, visit the NEI webpage on myopia.
The study was supported by NIH grants UG1 EY023204, EY023206, EY023208, EY023210, P30 EY007551, UL1 TR002733.