The following is a summary of “Orthokeratology in controlling myopia of children: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials,” published in the October 2023 issue of Ophthalmology by Li et al.

Ophthalmology researchers are studying ways to delay and slow myopia progression in children. Researchers launched a retrospective study to assess the effectiveness of orthokeratology in controlling myopia in children to guide clinical treatment and care.

They conducted a search in the Cochrane Library, Embase, Pubmed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, China Biomedical Literature Database, WanFang, and Weipu databases for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating orthokeratology’s impact on managing childhood myopia up until November 5, 2022. Two researchers independently conducted the search, screening, and study extraction according to set criteria. Statistical analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software.

The results showed 14 RCTs encompassing 2,058 children. The synthesis of data demonstrated that orthokeratology led to enhancements in uncorrected visual acuity (MD = 0.40, 95%CI: 0.05 ~ 0.74), reductions in diopter change (MD=-3.19, 95%CI: -4.42~-1.95), alterations in corneal curvature (MD=-3.21, 95%CI: -3.64~-2.79), ocular axis length (MD=-0.66, 95%CI: -1.27~-0.06), and ocular axis change (MD=-0.42, 95%CI: -0.64~-0.21) after 1 year of orthokeratology wear (all P<0.05).After 2 years, orthokeratology reduced the diopter change (MD=-3.22, 95%CI: -4.86~-1.58), ocular axis length (MD=-1.15, 95%CI: -2.25~-0.06), and ocular axis change (MD=-0.53, 95%CI: -0.96~-0.11) (all P<0.05). No evidence of publication biases was detected among the synthesized outcomes (all P>0.05).

They concluded that orthokeratology slows myopia in children, but long-term effects need study.

Source: bmcophthalmol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12886-023-03175-x