Myopia, also known as near-sightedness and short-sightedness, is an eye disease where light focuses in front of, instead of on, the retina. As a result, distant objects appear blurry while close objects appear normal. Other symptoms may include headaches and eye strain. Severe near-sightedness is associated with an increased risk of retinal detachment, cataracts, and glaucoma.The underlying mechanism involves the length of the eyeball growing too long or less commonly the lens being too strong. It is a type of refractive error. Diagnosis is by eye examination.Tentative evidence indicates that the risk of near-sightedness can be decreased by having young children spend more time outside. This decrease in risk may be related to natural light exposure. Near-sightedness can be corrected with eyeglasses, contact lenses, or a refractive surgery. Eyeglasses are the easiest and safest method of correction. Contact lenses can provide a wider field of vision, but are associated with a risk of infection. Refractive surgery permanently changes the shape of the cornea.Near-sightedness is the most common eye problem and is estimated to affect 1.5 billion people (22% of the world population). Rates vary significantly in different areas of the world. Rates among adults are between 15% to 49%. Among children, it affects 1% of rural Nepalese, 4% of South Africans, 12% of people in the US, and 37% in some large Chinese cities. In China the proportion of girls is slightly higher than boys. Rates have increased since the 1950s.
Strongly near-sighted wearers of contact lenses do not experience these distortions because the lens moves with the cornea, keeping the optic axis in line with the visual axis and because the vertex distance has been reduced to zero. Surgery
Refractive surgery includes procedures which alter the corneal curvature of some structure of the eye or which add additional refractive means inside the eye. Photorefractive keratectomy
Photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) involves ablation of corneal tissue from the corneal surface using an excimer laser. The amount of tissue ablation corresponds to the amount of myopia. While PRK is a relatively safe procedure for up to 6 dioptres of myopia, the recovery phase post-surgery is usually painful. LASIK
In a LASIK pre-procedure, a corneal flap is cut into the cornea and lifted to allow the excimer laser beam access to the exposed corneal tissue. After that, the excimer laser ablates the tissue according to the required correction. When the flap again covers the cornea, the change in curvature generated by the laser ablation proceeds to the corneal surface. Though LASIK is usually painless and involves a short rehabilitation period post-surgery, it can potentially result in flap complications and loss of corneal stability (post-LASIK keratectasia). Phakic intra-ocular lens
Instead of modifying the corneal surface, as in laser vision correction (LVC), this procedure involves implanting an additional lens inside the eye (i.e., in addition to the already existing natural lens). While it usually results in good control of the refractive change, it can induce potential serious long-term complications such as glaucoma, cataract and endothelial decompensation.