High prevalence of myopia in Japanese patients with multiple evanescent white dot syndrome.

Purpose: To compare the incidence of refractive errors in Japanese patients with multiple evanescent white dot syndrome (MEWDS) with that in age- and sex-matched controls.

Methods: Fifty Japanese patients with MEWDS (11 males and 39 females; ages, 15-58; mean 29.9 years) were studied retrospectively. The refractive errors (spherical equivalent) in the patients were compared with those of 150 age- and sex-matched controls.

Results: The mean refractive error in the patient group was -5.30 +/- 4.58 diopters (D) which was significantly greater than that in the controls (-2.57 +/- 2.94 D, P = 0.0005). Twenty-two (44.0%) of the 50 MEWDS patients had refractive errors >-6.00 D; whereas 14 (9.3%) of 150 normal subjects had this degree of myopia. This difference was statistically significant ( P < 0.005).

Conclusion: Japanese patients with MEWDS tend to be highly myopic.