Myopia breakthrough: Can nearsightedness be repaired with a course of eyedrops?

Could the global epidemic of myopia, otherwise known as nearsightedness, be curbed by simple eyedrops?

That’s the promise held out by new research which suggests a potential cure to a condition that affects nearly 90 per cent of children in developed Asian countries.

Glasses and contacts offer a corrective solution, but don't actually stop or slow vision's decline. But medicated eye drops may do just that.

In a five-year clinical trial conducted in Singapore, drops of a drug called atropine seemed to slow the progression of nearsightedness in children. Intriguingly, researchers found that a lower dose of the drug was more effective than higher dosages, in addition to risking fewer side effects.

The research was presented on November 16 at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in Las Vegas and will appear in the February 2016 edition of the journal Ophthalmology.

“The problem with myopia is if you get it at an early age and you regress, you end up with high myopia,” said lead researcher Donald Tan of the Singapore Eye Research Institute.

And high myopia - where the eyeball stretches and becomes too long - isn't just an inconvenience: It raises the raises the risk of other, more serious eye conditions, such as retinal detachment, macular degeneration, premature cataracts and glaucoma. “So what we've been trying to do for many years is to find out if there's any way to reduce the progression of myopia,” Tan said.