ABDO: Myopia Management Conference 2023

Last month, I had the privilege of attending the Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDOs) annual Myopia Management Conference (October 29-30) at the ABDO National Resource Centre in Birmingham. The one-day event kicked off with a presentation by James Wolffsohn, Professor of Optometry at Aston University, who led with some concerning facts and figures on worldwide myopia prevalence – an estimated 50 percent of the global population is expected to be afflicted by 2050. Wolffsohn described some general guidelines on myopia management and how it might be used in practice, in terms of screening for pre-myopia, as well as the optimal times for starting and stopping treatment. Biometers could be used to embed these management strategies into practice, said Wolffsohn, and he introduced the audience to the free myopia management data-driven app, PreMO. This app allows practitioners to indicate the risk of myopia development, predict progress if it is left untreated, and look at where children might fall on the percentile range. (Similarly, parents can chart their newborn’s developmental progress using growth charts). But Wolffsohn’s key public health message was that outdoor time needs to be encouraged in all children, with 1.5 to 2 hours per day recommended at the very least.

Next up was Neema Ghorbani Mojarrad, a lecturer at the University of Bradford, whose talk focused on genetic predispositions to myopia. Mojarrad was concerned with empowering practitioners in their parent/patient relationships; he dispensed (pun intended) advice on how practitioners might best discuss myopia with their patients. He re-emphasized that parents should encourage children to spend time outdoors, while also discussing low-dose atropine (not yet available in the UK) and Repeated Low-Level Red Light therapy (RLRL), which is currently licensed in the UK for myopia management.