The Myovision spectacle lens, which could help address the global increase in myopia (News 04.06.10), has won an excellence in innovation award.
According to the Sydney-based Vision Cooperative Research Centre (Vision CRC), which jointly developed the lens with Carl Zeiss Vision, the spectacles are the first to demonstrate an ability to slow myopia progression in children.
Professor Brien Holden, chief executive officer of Vision CRC, said it was a great honour to receive the award from the Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Association and paid tribute to the Myopia Program team which included partners from around the world. 'The Vision CRC is greatly honoured to receive this type of recognition from the CRC Association. The Association does a fantastic job in supporting the CRC organisations in their efforts to focus on delivering innovations,' he said.
The spectacles demonstrated an ability to slow the rate of progression of myopia by 30 per cent in children (aged 6-12) who had a history of parental myopia. The delay of myopia progression, if sustained over a number of years, meant that a child who would normally have a prescription of -6.00D by the time he or she reached the age of 18, would now only have a prescription of -4.00D.
Holden stated that a discovery about the causes of the growth of myopia was critical to the development of the lens technology.
'Professor Earl Smith from the University of Houston College of Optometry, a participant in the Myopia Program, has demonstrated that if we move the central image onto the retina but leave the peripheral image behind the retina, the peripheral image can drive the eye to elongate, causing myopia to increase,' he said. 'The beauty of this new technology is that it addresses this problem by bringing the peripheral image forward, onto or even in front of the retina, and at the same time independently positioning the central image on the retina giving clear vision.'