Myopia: a collagen disease?

Myopia is an increasingly important public health problem in the world. Even though previous studies have strongly implicated a role of certain environmental factors such as visual near-work in myopia development, the pathogenesis of this disease still remains unclear. There is evidence showing that myopia is primarily a hereditary condition, combined with or without environmental influence or individual habitual factors. Recent research suggests that collagens in the sclera play an important role in the development of myopia. Based on a literature review after a Medline search on articles on myopia, changes in scleral collagen appeared to underlie or be associated with the pathogenetic factors (including inheritance) involved in myopia development. Therefore, we hypothesized that myopia is a disorder, in which alterations of scleral collagens may be responsible for the pathological changes found in it.