Can Soft Bifocal CLs Slow Children's Myopia? NEI Study Looks to Find Out

"The University of Houston (UH) is part of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study to determine whether commercially available, soft bifocal contact lenses slow the progression of nearsightedness in children," writes Your Houston News. "Investigators at UH and The Ohio State University (OSU) Colleges of Optometry were awarded grants from the NIH’s National Eye Institute, worth approximately $7.5 million over five years. The Bifocal Lenses In Nearsighted Kids (BLINK) Study is a multicenter randomized clinical trial that will follow nearly 300 children over the course of three years. Dr. David A. Berntsen, an assistant professor in the UH College of Optometry, is the principal investigator for the UH clinical site of this collaborative effort. Children 7 to 11 years old will be enrolled and randomly assigned to wear soft contact lenses with no reading power, soft contact lenses with medium reading power or soft contact lenses with high reading power. The investigators will measure the length of the eye and the amount of nearsightedness to determine whether light focused by the reading power of the soft bifocal contact lenses in front of the retina will result in slower eye growth and, thus, slower progression of nearsightedness." Read more.