Myopia progression in young school children and intraocular pressure.

Studies of the literature have given the impression that intraocular pressure (IOP) may influence the refractive error (RE); the reason being that the IOP in some studies is higher among myopic subjects than among emmetropes and hypermetropes. The progression of myopia was studied in 49 children, aged 9-12 years, over a period of 2 years. The rate of progression was 1.14 D/2 years and the IOP 16.6 mmHg. Comparison of the rate of progression between children with an IOP above 16 mmHg and those with an IOP of 16 mmHg or less showed a statistically significant difference: 1.32 D/2 years as compared to 0.86 D/2 years. These results are supported by ultrasound measurement of the axial length. The author recommends that measurement of IOP should be included in the design of studies of myopia progression. The reason for this is, that it would appear that those persons most at risk of developing higher degrees of myopia have a high IOP.