The prevalence and incidence data collected in this study vary considerably between physicians. This may be explained by the various grades of specialisation as well as to possibly existing uncertainties regarding the definition and nomenclature of PM/high myopia and their different stages of the disease that should be harmonised. A generally accepted definition of severity grades, recommendations on diagnosis as well as detailed information and continuous training programmes on this disease is necessary.
Purpose: To assess the natural disease progression of high myopia in Caucasians considered at risk for the development of myopic choroidal neovascularization (mCNV). Methods: Subjects were recruited in 25 clinical sites between June 2014 and June 2016. Main inclusion criteria included axial length of ≥26 mm, best-corrected visual acuity ≥0.05 decimal equivalent and presence of at least one out of five predefined morphological disease risk criteria. These were (1) subfoveal choroidal thinning < 50 µm, (2) enhanced choroidal curvature length > 6,300 µm, (3) lacquer cracks, (4) patchy atrophy > 5 mm2 and (5) preexisting mCNV in the fellow eye (German Clinical Trial Register DRKS00007761). Results: A total of 150 participants (66% females) with a mean age of 57.2 (±12.7) years (range 21.9–86.2 years) were included. The disease criteria most frequently encountered were choroidal thinning (33.3%) and lacquer cracks (32.7%). Enhanced choroidal curvature length was detected in only 8 subjects and always occurred in combination with other disease criteria. Presence of patchy atrophy was found to be more common in older subjects (p = 0.0012) and also associated with a more severe disease manifestation. Conclusion: The baseline data of this study indicate that enhanced choroidal curvature might be less common in Caucasians than in Asian populations. Further, disease severity in patients with high myopia is relatively high in the presence of patchy atrophy.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.