Is your child myopic?
New cases of childhood myopia from age 7 years.
#Myopia commonly occurs in #children during their early school years and increases in magnitude as they get older.
Collaborative Longitudinal Evaluation of Ethnicity and Refractive Error (CLEERE) Study was conducted in the United States, recruited 4927 school-aged children from 1989 to 2009. Children from 5 ethnic/racial groups: Asians, African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and whites, between ages 5-16 years were included in the study.
Children were tested each year to report the percentage of new cases of myopia in the CLEERE Study from children who were not myopic when they entered the study. From the total sample, there were 4556 children who were not myopic when they entered the study. The percentage of children becoming myopic rose from 12.9% to 23.4%.
The largest percentage increase in new cases of myopia occurred between ages 7 and 9 years. Asians had the largest percentage of new cases compared to other ethnic groups.
The study reported myopia was present in a small percentage of children aged 7 years. More children became myopic every following year as the children continued in school through age 16 years, the age at onset peaked at around the ages of 10 to 11 years.
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