Original articleMyopia in Young Adults Is Inversely Related to an Objective Marker of Ocular Sun Exposure: The Western Australian Raine Cohort Study
Section snippets
Participants
This was a population-based cross-sectional study of 1344 participants in the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study.22, 23, 24 Prospective ethical approval was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of Western Australia. The study was conducted in accordance with the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and informed consent was obtained from all participants.
The cohort was predominantly of white ethnicity: 90.3% of participants had a white mother, 90.0%
Prevalence of Myopia
Of 1344 participants who attended the ophthalmic examination, 13 were excluded owing to absence of cycloplegic autorefraction (refused dilation) and 16 were excluded owing to inadequate or incomplete autofluorescence photographs. Thus, 1315 participants (97.8%) had complete autorefraction and conjunctival ultraviolet autofluorescence data.
Of 1328 participants with compete autorefraction data, mean age was 20.1 years (SD 0.46) and 684 (51.5%) were male. Three hundred eleven participants (23.7%)
Discussion
The results of this study demonstrate a strong inverse relationship between myopia and conjunctival ultraviolet autofluorescence, an objective biomarker of ocular sun exposure and outdoor time.19 The relationship remained significant after adjustment for age, sex, educational level, and parental history of myopia. The difference in prevalence of myopia between the groups appears to be clinically significant as well as statistically significant, with more than two and a half times the odds of
Charlotte M. McKnight MBBS is a trainee ophthalmologist in the Western Australian training network of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists. She is undertaking a Masters of Medical Science at the Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Western Australia. She has published several scientific papers and received research grants including Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology International Travel Grant and Ophthalmic Research Institute
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Charlotte M. McKnight MBBS is a trainee ophthalmologist in the Western Australian training network of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists. She is undertaking a Masters of Medical Science at the Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Western Australia. She has published several scientific papers and received research grants including Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology International Travel Grant and Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia New Investigator Research Grant.
David A. Mackey MD FRANZCO is the Managing Director of the Lions Eye Institute (www.lei.org.au), and chair of the Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Western Australia. He has a major research interest in genetic and environmental factors affecting eye disease, is President of the International Society for Genetic Eye Disease and Retinoblastoma, a Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, an Alcon Research Institute awardee and author of over 250 scientific papers.