EssilorLuxottica
Like many nearsighted kids, I didn’t know anything was wrong with my eyes. I just knew I couldn’t read what my teacher wrote on the blackboard from my seat in the back row of my second-grade classroom. Eventually, after enough complaints, I was diagnosed with nearsightedness – now known as myopia – and embarrassingly fitted with my first pair of eyeglasses.
Like millions of children before and since, that wasn’t the end of the story. My myopia grew worse, requiring a stronger prescription and ever-thickening lenses every couple of years, continuing well into my present advanced adulthood.
That familiar childhood myopic deterioration may no longer be inevitable.
EssilorLuxottica, by far the world’s largest eyewear company whose brands and retail chains include Ray-Ban, Oakley, LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, and Target Optical, has introduced the Essilor Stellest lens in the U.S., the first eyeglass lens authorized by the FDA clinically shown to slow the progression of childhood myopia.
In nearly six years of global clinical testing, children wearing the Stellest lenses experienced an average 71% reduction in myopia progression over two years compared with conventional single-vision lenses.
The Stellest lenses are now available through many independent optometrists carrying EssilorLuxottica products, as well as LensCrafters, Walmart Vision Centers, MyEyeDr., and other participating retailers. VSP Vision Care and other vision insurance plans also provide coverage, although pricing varies by provider.
“This is a huge public health service that all of us are part of today,” reported Dr. Monica Jong, EssilorLuxottica North America’s chief medical officer. “What is lacking is awareness about myopia. And it is parents and teachers and pediatricians as well as eyecare practitioners together holding hands to let everybody know how important myopia is.”
Myopia is more than an affliction
There’s a difference between corrective lenses and lenses designed to treat a chronic disease, which is what myopia is now considered.
“A normal shaped eye should be round like a basketball, so that when light rays enter the eye, they focus exactly on the back of the eye, giving a clear image,” Dr. Jong explains. “Now, in myopia, what is happening is the eyeball is starting to grow too fast and becomes too long, and it's expanding a bit like a football. This axial elongation, or faster rate of expansion of the eye, actually causes structural changes to the eye. It’s like a balloon that’s being blown up too big [which could lead] to a significant increase in the risk of ocular health complications, diseases such as macular degeneration, retinal detachment, tears, as well as glaucoma and cataracts.”
So instead of simply sharpening images, Stellest lenses are designed to slow that myopic eye elongation. Embedded within what otherwise appears to be a conventional eyeglass lens are 11 treatment rings containing more than 1,000 microscopic lenslets. Together these lenslets create optical signals designed to slow the abnormal growth of the eye while still providing normal vision correction.
These lenslet treatment zones are essentially invisible to both the wearer and anyone looking at the glasses. EssilorLuxottica says children wearing the lenses still achieve normal 20/20 vision under a variety of lighting conditions.
Solving a common childhood experience
My own childhood experience turned out to be remarkably common.
Entrepreneur and influencer Hannah Bronfman recalled being diagnosed with myopia at age 11 after repeatedly telling teachers she couldn’t see the classroom chalkboard – only to have them dismiss her complaints as attention-seeking. Bronfman eventually got glasses, but, like me and millions of other kids, suffered as her prescription worsened over time. She later dealt with contact lenses, corneal injuries, and corrective eye surgery.
“If I had these lenses when I was a kid,” Bronfman related regretfully, “I not only would have been able to reduce my myopia, but also probably would have saved myself my scratched cornea…and maybe I would have been able to have PRK [Photorefractive Keratectomy, a type of eye laser surgery]…at a younger age.”
Unfortunately, childhood myopia is becoming more common and could soon precipitate a major global health crisis.
EssilorLuxottica estimates that half the world’s population could be myopic by 2050, including roughly 740 million children. More than four in 10 North American adults and one in four children between ages 6 and 19 already have myopia, and the prevalence continues to climb.
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Why are we seeing more childhood myopia?
Dr. Jong reports that genetics plays an important role: children with one myopic parent face roughly double the risk, while those with two myopic parents face an even greater likelihood. Lifestyle appears to contribute as well.
“The modern lifestyle has meant that a lot of kids are spending more time indoors,” which Dr. Jong explained is “driving a lot more children to start developing myopia a bit earlier.”
Spending an additional two hours outdoors each day has been shown to reduce the risk of developing myopia, Dr. Jong advised, likely because of brighter natural light and the eye’s opportunity to focus on a variety of near and distant objects instead of screens and other nearby tasks.
“Being outside is protective, and we know that,” Dr. Jong added. “And unfortunately, lifestyle is very difficult to change.”
Check early, check often
Dr. Jong also stressed that parents shouldn’t wait until children complain they can’t see the board in school.
Only about 6% of U.S. schoolchildren receive a comprehensive eye examination each year, Dr. Jong noted, despite vision accounting for roughly 80% of learning. Comprehensive eye exams can detect not only myopia but numerous other eye conditions before they become more serious.
“Don’t wait for your children to tell you they cannot see clearly,” Dr. Jong strongly advise, “because often children don’t have the verbalization to explain that.”
As for those of us who have long since graduated from elementary school, the myopic news is less definitive. Stellest has been clinically studied only in children, although “anecdotally, practitioners are prescribing them when they see that there’s a benefit outweighing the risk of not doing anything,” according to Dr. Jong.
Research is continuing into additional age groups and future technologies, including smart glasses that could monitor whether children wear the lenses long enough each day.
Had technology like Stellest existed when I was squinting at that second-grade blackboard, the world – and the lenses through which I saw it, and through which others saw me – might have looked very different indeed.
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