For the optician
MYOLESS
Myopia management
Together, we turn glasses into a superpower!
Vision is the ultimate tool a child possesses to explore and interpret the world. Over 80% of the information we assimilate comes through our vision. That’s why it’s crucial to understand how vision influences a child’s development.
It is believed that an uncorrected refractive error can affect cognitive development and a child’s social integration, impacting cognitive functions such as perception, intelligence, thinking, understanding, and language. For many children, difficulties in school are the result of a muscular imbalance in the eye, which also limits their ability to focus on an object. Globally, studies show that by 2050, over 50% of the world’s population will have myopia.
We understand that wearing glasses can be a challenge for little ones. We know how complicated it can be for parents to find and implement the most effective solution to control myopia progression. At Avvero, we support children, parents, and prescribers with a reliable ally: Myolino!
Myolino is the ambassador for the MyoLess lens, Avvero’s solution for myopia management. Myolino helps children understand how to take care of their glasses, why they should be excited about wearing them, and offers useful tips to control myopia progression. With us, glasses become a part of every child’s story.
Why myopia occurs?
During the first months of life of a child, most eyes have a hyperopic refractive error that is gradually reduced as consequence of the continuing changes of eye dimensions during the period of growth. Emmetropization is the process whereby the refractive error and the axial length of the eye come into a balance. The enlargement of the optical elements of the eye causes a loss of power that is balanced with increased axial length. The most part of ocular growth occurs in the first few years of life. After this, the eye growth slows down, with an average increase of 0.16mm per year for age 6–9 years, 0.08 mm per year for age 9–12 and 0.02 mm annually for age group 11–14 years. So, it isconsidered that the average axial length growth during the whole period is of 0.1mm per year. However, when the axial length growth does not match the changes in the cornea and the lens, the emmetropization process fails, which leads to refractive error.
Myopia definition
Myopia is a refractive error in which rays of light entering the eye are focused in front of the retina when accommodation is relaxed. This usually can be attributed to an excessive axial elongation that in the most extreme cases can produce structural changes in the retina associated to irreversible blindness. The axial length of myopic eyes grows much faster than that of emmetropic eyes, the growth rate being around 0.3mm per year in younger children and 0.2mm per year in older children.
Myopia factor risks
The causes for myopia onset are complex and multifactorial with many studies suggesting that it could be linked to genetics and environmental conditions:
- hundreds of genes have been associated with myopia onset. The presence of parental myopia and certain Asian ethnicities increase the risk of myopia;
- the environmental factors associated with myopia includes limited outdoors activities, excessive near vision work and characteristics of light exposure to which the individual is exposed to.
Why to be concerned about myopia?
When the amount of myopia is higher than 6.00D, there is a greater risk to suffer from structural changes in the eye that can cause significant visual disability and, as a consequence, affect the quality of life of myopic patients. People with high myopia have a higher risk of developing some ocular pathologies:
- 41X more risk to have myopic maculopathy;
- 22X more likely to develop retinal detachment;
- 6X higher risk to develop cataracts;
- 3X more likely to present glaucoma.
Some studies have shown that slowing myopia progression by 1 diopter during childhood reduces by 40% the risk to develop myopic maculopathy, the most common and serious sight-threatening complication of myopia and the main cause of irreversible vision loss in the world.
What can be done?
Eye care professionals from across the globe are concerned about the increasing level of myopia in their practices and report that simply correcting the refractive error is not enough. In fact, many eye care professionals have implemented specific strategies for myopia management in their routine practice over the last years. Practitioners consider that active management of myopia is critical to reduce the risk of irreversible visual impairment from the pathological conditions associated with high myopia. So, reducing axial elongation is the key target for myopia management.
MyoLess
MyoLess is the solution for managing myopia. Made with free-form technology, MyoLess lenses are based on the theory of peripheral myopic defocus and asymmetric defocus.
Peripheral positive/myopic defocus
Several studies have suggested that peripheral refractive error may play an important role in eye growth. Specifically, it has been hypothesized that peripheral hyperopic defocus provides a stimulus for axial elongation and the consequent progression of myopia. Also, experiments in animals have shown that myopic defocus induced with positive power in the peripheral retina reduce axial elongation. In myopic eyes, images form in front of the retinal plane, leading to blurred vision. To correct myopia, standard negative lenses are prescribed to shift images onto the retinal plane. However, the use of standard lenses results in images falling behind the retinal plane in the peripheral retina, likely leading to eye elongation. Thus, MyoLess has been specifically designed to fully correct the refractive error at the fovea while inducing a myopic defocus on the peripheral retina. This defocus is achieved by a carefully designed distribution of positive power at the lens periphery.
Progressive asymmetric defocus
It is well known that the retina is asymmetrical. Specially, differences between nasal and temporal retinal hemifields have been found for anatomical neural characteristics, peripheral refraction, and axial growth. In this sense, it has been suggested that sensitivity of the retina could be different between the nasal and temporal hemifields being probably the nasal half of the retina more important regarding the mechanism driving eye growth in the presence of hyperopic defocus.
The MyoLess has been designed considering the morphologicalcharacteristics of the myopic retina. For that reason, the design presents slightly higher positive power in the temporal area of the lens, inducing a higher myopic defocus in the nasal area of the retina.
The overall excellent performance of MyoLess is the result of the correct balance between the sizes of the optical and treatment areas and the right choosing of asymmetrical power profiles for peripheral defocus. All this makes a very comfortable lens that provides good performance and sharpness for distance, intermediate and near vision.
97% were satisfied with the performance of MyoLess lenses at distance, intermediate, and near
95% said MyoLess lenses provided excellent comfort
100% reported good sharpness while wearing MyoLess lenses