![Takeru Eye Clinic | Takatori Shopping Street, Sawara-ku, Fukuoka City [Nishijin Station / Fujisaki Station]](https://takeru-eye.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/takeru_logo_for-WP-header.png){kind=logo}
“A Warning About the Rising Trend of Myopia in Elementary and Junior High School Students”
- About 80% of elementary school students and about 95% of junior high school students in Tokyo are myopic
This introduces a myopia epidemiology study of 1,400 elementary and junior high school students in Tokyo, announced this week.
(From the announcement by Keio University)
• The first report of myopia prevalence in Japan in about 20 years.
• Myopia may be associated with dry eye.
• In a 2005 report from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, high myopia ranked 4th among the causes of blindness in Japan, but the prevalence of childhood myopia in Japan had not been reported since the 1990s.
• Among 689 elementary school students, the prevalence of myopia was 76.5%, the prevalence of high myopia was 4.0%, and the mean axial length was 23.41 mm, almost the same as in adults.
• Among 727 junior high school students, the prevalence of myopia was 94.9%, higher than previously reported in other countries, the prevalence of high myopia was 11.3%, and the mean axial length was 24.73 mm.
This study provides myopia prevalence data including axial length measurements, and serves as the latest basic data on myopia in elementary and junior high school students in Tokyo in recent years. It is hoped that the results will sound an alarm about the rise in myopia and help to curb future increases in the myopic and highly myopic populations.
The results were published online in JAMA Ophthalmology on August 15, 2019 (U.S. Eastern Time).
https://www.keio.ac.jp/ja/press-releases/files/2019/8/19/190819-1.pdf
Yotsukura, E., et al., 2019. Current Prevalence of Myopia and Association of Myopia With Environmental Factors Among Schoolchildren in Japan. JAMA Ophthalmol. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2019.3103
