Conference report 2: ESCRS virtual 2020

After an insight into the genetics of myopia with Chris Hammond, highlighting the importance of genetics from twin studies, David Mackey spoke on environmental factors. He pointed out that myopia was increasing long before the introduction of electronic devices, tablets and smartphones. He summarised data showing that the more near work and the less time outdoors, the greater the risk. Myopia and skin cancer are inversely correlated and conjunctival ultraviolet autofluorescence can be an objective measure of time spent outdoors as opposed to relying on the subjective recollection often used in myopia studies.

Jesper Hjortdal spoke on ‘super vision’ during a session on the cornea. Obstacles to achieving super vision include tear film instability, lens aberrations (that vary with accommodation), and diffraction limitations (caused by pupil size). Nino Hirnschall then spoke on the measurement of refractive error and visual acuity. He advised that reproducibility is better with autorefraction than subjective refraction and suggested that it would be better to measure refraction continuously over 60 seconds or so with automated methods to improve accuracy. He discussed the concept of functional vision assessment, which could be much more useful in conditions such as dry eye disease and cataract.