Prediction of Juvenile-Onset Myopia.

Importance: Myopia (nearsightedness) has its onset in childhood and affects about one-third of adults in the United States. Along with its high prevalence, myopia is expensive to correct and is associated with ocular diseases that include glaucoma and retinal detachment.

Objective: To determine the best set of predictors for myopia onset in school-aged children.

Design, Setting, And Participants: The Collaborative Longitudinal Evaluation of Ethnicity and Refractive Error (CLEERE) Study was an observational cohort study of ocular development and myopia onset conducted at 5 clinical sites from September 1, 1989, through May 22, 2010. Data were collected from 4512 ethnically diverse, nonmyopic school-aged children from grades 1 through 8 (baseline grades 1 through 6) (ages 6 through 13 years [baseline, 6 through 11 years]).

Main Outcomes And Measures: We evaluated 13 candidate risk factors for their ability to predict the onset of myopia. Myopia onset was defined as -0.75 diopters or more of myopia in each principal meridian in the right eye as measured by cycloplegic autorefraction at any visit after baseline until grade 8 (age 13 years). We evaluated risk factors using odds ratios from discrete time survival analysis, the area under the curve, and cross validation.

Results: A total of 414 children became myopic from grades 2 through 8 (ages 7 through 13 years). Of the 13 factors evaluated, 10 were associated with the risk for myopia onset (P < .05). Of these 10 factors, 8 retained their association in multivariate models: spherical equivalent refractive error at baseline, parental myopia, axial length, corneal power, crystalline lens power, ratio of accommodative convergence to accommodation (AC/A ratio), horizontal/vertical astigmatism magnitude, and visual activity. A less hyperopic/more myopic baseline refractive error was consistently associated with risk of myopia onset in multivariate models (odds ratios from 0.02 to 0.13, P < .001), while near work, time outdoors, and having myopic parents were not. Spherical equivalent refractive error was the single best predictive factor that performed as well as all 8 factors together, with an area under the curve (C statistic) ranging from 0.87 to 0.93 (95% CI, 0.79-0.99).

Conclusions And Relevance: Future myopia can be predicted in a nonmyopic child using a simple, single measure of refractive error. Future trials for prevention of myopia should target the child with low hyperopia as the child at risk.