The Relationship between Reduced Lag of Accommodation and Rate of Myopia Progression in School Children in Kumasi, Ghana.

This paper investigated the relationship between lag of accommodation and myopia progression in children with progressing myopia. In a twelve-month longitudinal study, the accommodative response of 75 children with mean age of 12.39 ± 1.27 years (range 10 to 15 years) was measured at three visits. The mean refractive error of the children at the beginning of the study was -1.98±0.50D. Refractive error, accommodative response to target at 28.6cm and ocular biometry were measured at the visits. Refractive change was determined by cycloplegic autorefraction, accommodative response by the open field autorefractor and axial length and vitreous chamber depth by A-scan ultrasonography. Results presented were on the right eye only because Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.90 between the two eyes. The data was analyzed by paired t-test at level of significance of 5%.The results showed that myopia progression in the year was -0.37 ± 0.17D (range from 0 to -1.00D). The mean change in vitreous chamber depth and axial length was 0.17 ± 0.15mm and 0.21 ± 0.16mm respectively (p=0.11). The near lag at baseline was 0.57 ± 0.14 D and after one year it was 0.56 ±0.16D (p=0.68). There was no correlation found between lag of accommodation and myopia progression and change in ocular biometry. There was no significant difference in myopia progression and larger or smaller lag (p=0.64).In conclusion, this study failed to show a statistically significant relationship between lag of accommodation in children with progressing myopia and myopia progression. There is no evidence that larger lag of accommodation causes myopia progression in children with progressing myopia.