Universitat de València to use optical technology to prevent myopia

Universitat de ValènciaSep 26 2012

The Universitat de València will use optical technology in order to prevent myopia, which is considered the most common eye disease in the world. Until now, this technology was only used in astronomy to study images of the Universe.

Professor of optics Robert Montés Micó has achieved one of the prestigious projects of the European Research Council, worth a million and a half Euros, to study the signs of the processes that generate myopia.

The Starting Research Grant projects are awarded to senior researchers who are working in projects likely to change the current science. In this case, the results could affect one of the most common problems of the public health.

The project's goal is to identify the signs that control the accommodative processes produced when the human eye receives images in the retina. According to Montés 'we will be able to modify them in order to control the growing suffered by the eye avoiding, for example, alterations of its axial length, which is the case of myopia.'

The project will use visual simulation using an adaptive optical technology, which is usually used in astronomy, for the study of the human eye. After that, 'we hope to have the tools to modify the signs which control the eye accommodative processes with optical devices. All this with the goal of stopping myopia progression, especially in children', the expert says.

Up to now, there was no effective therapy for this, since eye operations avoid using glasses or contact lenses but do not end with the disease. For this reason, the project 'will allow to move forward in the treatment and prevent its worsening by creating glasses or contact lenses which will stop the disease or its process. It will also provide updated information on its cases rate in Europe' the researcher explains.

Shortsightedness has become a very important condition of public health, besides being the most common eye disease (representing 80%). The increase of myopia increases the risk of other diseases such as blindness, glaucoma, retinopathy, retinal detachment or cataracts. There has been an increase in prevalence of the disease in developed countries because, in addition to hereditary factors, myopia is linked to close visions. In fact, in the U.S. in 30 years, the population affected has gone from 25% to 42% and, therefore, costing of 7.2 billion dollars a year, according to Robert Montés Micó. Prevalence in Africa or India is 10%, 15% in South America and 60 to 80% in parts of Asia (up to 90 in China and Taiwan), but for genetic reasons.