Red Light Therapy Curbs High Myopia in Children

TOPLINE:

Repeated low-stage red light (RLRL) therapy reduces axial elongation and stabilizes refractive error in teenagers and teenagers with excessive myopia.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers conducted a randomized control trial to assess the efficacy and safety of RLRL therapy in 188 teenagers and teenagers (median age, 11 years) with excessive myopia, defined as having cycloplegic spherical comparable refraction of on the least −4 diopters.
• They randomly assigned the participants (1:1 ratio) to obtain the intervention or control, which fully entailed single-imaginative and prescient spectacles.
• The RLRL therapy used to be administered as a 3-minute session, twice a day, with a minimal 4-hour interval between the classes for 7 days a week till 365 days of be conscious-up.
• Potentially the predominant final consequence used to be the synthetic in axial length at 1 year, and the secondary final consequence used to be the synthetic in cycloplegic spherical comparable refraction.

TAKEAWAY:

• A dinky bit over half of of the participants who obtained RLRL therapy experienced axial shortening of 0.05 mm or extra.
• The adjusted mean substitute in axial length used to be −0.06 mm (95% CI, −0.10 to −0.02) for the intervention neighborhood and nil.34 mm (95% CI, 0.30-0.39) for the control neighborhood.
• Spherical comparable refraction improved by 0.11 diopters in the intervention neighborhood and worsened by −0.75 diopters in the control neighborhood (P < .0001).
• One participant experienced conjunctivitis in the RLRL neighborhood. No excessive detrimental events were reported.

IN PRACTICE:

“Our ogle means that RLRL medication is an very excellent solution for obtaining myopia control in teenagers with excessive myopia, and it’s the fully existing ability to shorten the axial length,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

The ogle used to be led by Yan Xu, PhD, from the Shanghai Remember Prevention and Therapy Middle on the Shanghai Remember Health facility in Shanghai, China, and used to be printed online in Ophthalmology.

LIMITATIONS:

The ogle defined excessive myopia the utilization of a cutoff of −4 diopters, which is decrease than the extra recurrently feeble cutoff of −6 or −5 diopters. The be conscious-up of 365 days might perchance additionally no longer fully present the lengthy-time duration effects of RLRL therapy on myopia. The participants in the intervention and control groups were responsive to the assigned medication, which might additionally have launched bias.

DISCLOSURES:

This ogle used to be funded by the Clinical Compare Program of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Nicely being and Household Planning of China, Eyerising, and Zuoguan Clinical Equipment (a subsidiary of Eyerising Ltd). The authors reported no conflicts of interest.