Relative peripheral refraction in myopic children wearing orthokeratology lenses using a novel multispectral refraction topographer.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Orthokeratology (OK) lens is commonly used to control myopia progression of children. Understanding the relationship between relative peripheral refraction (RPR) and the growth rate of axial length (AL) may assist in explaining myopic progression.

BACKGROUND

The aim of this work is to investigate the RPR in myopic children wearing OK lenses, and to evaluate its relationship with the growth rate of AL.

METHODS

RPRs of 31 children wearing OK lenses and 31 children wearing single-vision glasses were measured with multispectral refraction topography (MRT). MRT shows the total RPR (TRPR), RPR in the superior area (RPR-S), RPR in the inferior area (RPR-I), RPR in the temporal area (RPR-T) and RPR in the nasal area (RPR-N), respectively. It also shows RPR in the visual field of 15° (RPR-15), 30° (RPR-30) and 45° (RPR-45), respectively. RPRs in the visual field from 15° to 30°, 30° to 45° and 15° to 45° are recorded as RPR-(30-15), RPR-(45-30) and RPR-(45-15), respectively. According to the growth rate of AL, children wearing OK lenses were further divided into slow and fast growth groups.

RESULTS

TRPR, RPR-I, RPR-T, RPR-N, RPR-15, RPR-30, RPR-45, RPR-(30-15), RPR-(45-30), and RPR-(45-15) of children in the OK lens group were significantly smaller than in the control group (all P < 0.05). TRPR, RPR-N, RPR-15, RPR-30, RPR-45, RPR-(30-15), and RPR-(45-15) of the slow growth group were significantly smaller than in the fast growth group (all P < 0.05). The growth rate of AL were positively correlated with TRPR (R = 0.383, P = 0.040), RPR-N (R = 0.395, P = 0.034), RPR-30 (R = 0.408, P = 0.028), RPR-45 (R = 0.377, P = 0.044), RPR-(30-15) (R = 0.390, P = 0.036).

CONCLUSIONS

RPRs of children show relative myopic defocus after wearing OK lenses. Furthermore, the growth rate of AL is smaller with more negative RPR.