East Asia has experienced an excessive increase in myopia in the past decades with more than 80% of the younger generation now affected. Environmental and genetic factors are both assumed to contribute in the development of refractive errors, but the etiology is unknown. The environmental factor argued to be of greatest importance in preventing myopia is high levels of daylight exposure. If true, myopia prevalence would be higher in adolescents living in high latitude countries with fewer daylight hours in the autumn-winter. We examined the prevalence of refractive errors in a representative sample of 16–19-year-old Norwegian Caucasians (n = 393, 41.2% males) in a representative region of Norway (60° latitude North). At this latitude, autumn-winter is 50 days longer than summer. Using gold-standard methods of cycloplegic autorefraction and ocular biometry, the overall prevalence of myopia [spherical equivalent refraction (SER) ≤−0.50 D] was 13%, considerably lower than in East Asians. Hyperopia (SER ≥ + 0.50 D), astigmatism (≥1.00 DC) and anisometropia (≥1.00 D) were found in 57%, 9% and 4%. Norwegian adolescents seem to defy the world-wide trend of increasing myopia. This suggests that there is a need to explore why daylight exposure during a relatively short summer outweighs that of the longer autumn-winter.

The relationships between perifoveal measures of achromatic-, L- and M-cone acuity and retinal structure were investigated in healthy young males. Thirty-two males, aged 20-39years, with normal foveal logMAR letter acuity and no observed ocular abnormalities participated in the study. Achromatic and isolated L- and M-cone spatial acuity was measured in the dominant eye with a Sloan E letter of 90% achromatic decrement contrast or 23% increment cone contrast, respectively. Separately, the central part of the same eye was imaged with high-resolution spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) and adaptive optics ophthalmoscopy (AOO). Thickness measures and cone density in the fovea and parafoveal region were not correlated with perifoveal structural measures. A significant correlation was observed between thicker retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) complex, higher cone density and better L-cone logMAR at 5deg eccentricity, but not for achromatic or M-cone logMAR. The results imply that single letter perifoveal L-cone acuity, rather than achromatic acuity, may provide a useful measure for assessing the structure-function relationship and detecting early changes in the perifoveal cone mosaic.

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Pseudoeksfoliasjonsyndrom er et vanlig funn i en aldrende befolkning og optikere er i en unik situasjon til å avdekke syndromet for første gang. Pseudoeksfoliasjonsyndrom er mest kjent blant øyehelsepersonell som en årsak til sekundær åpenvinklet glaukom. Men syndromet er systemisk, og har andre karakteristiske okulære funn og komplikasjoner. Kasuistikken presenterer en kvinne i en alder av 88 år som er til optiker for første gang, hvor pseudoeksfoliasjon observeres. Det ble også observert nukleær katarakt og korneal endotelcelletap, noe som er vanlige funn hos pasienter med pseudoeksfoliasjonsyndrom. Pasienten får utskrevet briller for nærarbeid og blir henvist øyelege for vurdering av kataraktoperasjon. Kasuistikken tar for seg påvirkningen pseudoeksfoliasjonsyndrom har på kornealt endotel og det diskuteres hvordan pasienter med pseudoeksfoliasjon bør behandles av optiker.