Time course of rhesus lid-suture myopia.

Axial-length and refraction measurements are presented for the lid-sutured rhesus monkey at 6-month intervals during the first 1.5 years of life. The experimental data are fitted to an exponential growth theory allowing the calculation of time constants, apparent time origins, and correlation coefficients for 10 eyes from five animals. On average, axial length develops with a time constant of 0.40 year for lid-suture myopia, compared with 0.42 year for the normal eye. A practical application of this work is that one must allow 1.6 years of lid suture to achieve 95% of the total refractive or axial-length change.