AAOpt 2023: Managing myopia improves quality of life

CooperVision played a role in myopia management research presented during the 2023 American Academy of Optometry meeting held in New Orleans and Michele Andrews, OD, vice president of professional and government affairs at CooperVision, caught up with Optometry Times' editor Kassi Jackson to share highlights and key takeaways.

Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Kassi Jackson, Editor:

Hi, everyone, I'm sitting down with Dr. Michelle Andrews, who is vice president of professional and government affairs at CooperVision. And you guys presented data on myopia, as well. Can you share with us that information?

Michele Andrews, OD:

We did. So, of course, we have the MiSight contact lens, which has been in market since early 2020, after receiving the FDA approval, in late 2019—so going on 4 years of having this product in market. And so what we looked at is the subjective vision experience in teens and preteens with the MiSight compared to another myopia control soft lens.

And what we've learned is that both groups prefer the MiSight lens for both distance and near vision, as well as their overall preference. So it's just a reminder that even with the myopia control, optical design, that the wearers have a very good visual experience with the lens.

One of the interesting elements that came out of this is that teens were slightly subjectively less favorable than preteens overall. And what that tells us is that as these children age, they'd likely become more visually discriminating. They have more visually specific tasks. So that's just an important thing to understand as we're prescribing to these older teens, to make sure that we're counseling them appropriately. Their vision is great, but they may describe it a little bit differently than a younger child with less visual discriminating lifestyle.

The second study that we presented was on Visavy. This is a software guided tool for our Paragon CRT and CRT Dual Axis lenses. And so oftentimes practitioners find CRT or ortho-k products more complicated to fit, but by following this fitting tool, the researchers found that 96% of the time the first lens suggested by Visavy was the final lens.

So really good first fit success, again, driving confidence for eye care professionals, when they have a patient that would be better served with an ortho-k option for their myopia management, that they can get great first fit success.

Jackson:

Wonderful. So what are some of the key takeaways you want to make sure that optometrists and clinicians take home with them from these studies?

Andrews:

The most important thing about myopia management is to start treating your patients with myopia. We really want to move the profession from traditional contact lenses and glasses into options that can control the myopia.

With MiSight, it's the first and still only FDA approved product to slow the progression of myopia in age appropriate children. The children do really well with a single use lens, they see really well and they have a great quality of life.

So the key take home messages is: don't wait. Start practicing myopia management as your standard of care for children with myopia in your practice. The products are there and they're easy to use.

Jackson:

Building off of that looking at the patient care side of things, what does this mean for patient care?

Andrews:

This is a great practice builder. When you're talking to parents about not only giving their children great vision, but a chance at a future with less myopia, oftentimes, children are coming in with parents who went through that experience of just getting stronger glasses every year, getting thicker glasses or contact lenses with a higher prescription.

And there is a big quality of life difference between high myopia and much lower myopia. And so parents are happy about it. And it's just such a—it's the reason we all went into this profession is to really help our patients, and I can't think of anything better than being able to correct people's vision and giving them a healthy ocular future.

Jackson

Dr. Andrews, thank you so much for your time today.

Andrews:

Thank you.