Study Explores Relationship Between Age at Myopia Onset and Disease Development

Patients with childhood-onset myopia are more at risk for ocular disease, but exhibited a substantially longer mean interval preceding comorbidities (50.7 years) compared to those with adult-onset myopia (15.4 years). Photo: Getty Images. Myopia can be a contributing factor for a variety of ocular diseases, and the earlier a patient is diagnosed, the more at risk they are of developing high myopia and all its attendant complications. In order to further understand how myopia at early ages impacts the risk of disease progression, researchers from China analyzed electronic health records (EHR) of young myopic patients.Using data from the United Kingdom Biobank, the team of researchers conducted a randomized phenome-wide association study. This allows the researchers to assess large datasets to identify relationships between age and diseases while removing biases that are inherent with observational studies. Information about the patients’ ages, myopic conditions and disease trajectory was studied.The study “offers evidence that younger myopia onset is linked to ocular disorders and hypothyroidism development,” wrote the researchers in their paper published in Ophthalmology Science. A total of 315,568 EHRs were selected for this study. Myopia was prevalent in 27.8% of cases (n=19,901), and high myopia was found in 4.1% of those cases (n=2,905). The median onset age for cases in this study was 17 years. The phenome-wide analysis reported an association between younger myopes and the development of cataracts, retinal detachments, primary angle-closure glaucoma, vitreous body disorders and hypothyroidism risk.“The temporal analysis paid close attention to age distributions of various morbidities related to myopia onset in childhood and adult-onset groups,” the authors wrote. “This information provides temporal information about disease associations and suggests myopia diagnosis precedes other ocular disorders. While this has been presumed in the past, confirming this information provides a new impetus to structure intervention time points to prevent the development of myopia-related comorbidities.” This analysis found that patients diagnosed with myopia under the age of 18 exhibited comorbidities at an average of 50.7 years later after diagnosis, while those diagnosed after the age of 18 exhibited comorbidities at an average of 15.4 years later.While the large dataset and the removal of biases provided researchers with credible data, there were limitations to this study. EHRs were collected from a single system, the UK Biobank, in which ages were self-reported and hospitalization and mortality data were recorded. Furthermore, the baseline age for older individuals (over 18 years of age) was too general and restricted the researchers’ abilities to apply their results to other outcomes and settings.“Our results emphasize that younger-onset myopia is a significant public health concern for an ethnically diverse and aging population,” concluded the authors. “These findings offer a foundation for further research on the prevention of myopia and its causally related comorbidities.”Click here for the journal source. Zhang X, Wang S, Huang Y, et al. Exploring effects of age at myopia on multiple diseases using electronic health records. Ophthalmology Science. May 5, 2024. [Epub ahead of print].