February 3, 2025
Meenal Agarwal, OD, HBSc
MARKHAM, Ontario, Canada – At THE Myopia Meeting held here, Sunday, December 8, 2024, Meenal Agarwal, OD, HBSc, presented a clinical review on behalf of HOYA Vision Care. The presentation focused on the company’s MiYOSMART spectacle lens for myopia management, including the latest research on the lens and the ways that HOYA has diversified its lens offerings in recent years.
Highlighting the Evidence to Date
To kick things off, Dr. Agarwal highlighted the clinical data that HOYA has collected on its MiYOSMART lenses over the last several years.
“I think the most important thing as clinicians and as parents that we want to look at is the evidence,” Dr. Agarwal said. “Why would I promote a therapy or a product if there’s not good evidence to back it up?
“MiYOSMART has shown year over year to have very good evidence, and it’s been published in incredible peer-reviewed journals. When we say peer reviewed, we mean that this is not information that HOYA decides to just put out there, but non-biased peers have reviewed the data and made sure that it’s accurate, and that’s very important to us. If it’s not peer reviewed, it’s not credible, and I don’t know if I’m going to use it on my child or on my patients.
“When we look at MiYOSMART, we know that it’s the DIMS technology. We know there’s a sustained long-term effectiveness. We know there’s no rebound effects and we know it’s been tested in different ethnicities. We also know it’s been tested in combination therapy and it’s reliable. It’s easy for patients to use and there’s no risks.
“With MiYOSMART, there’s been a 60% average slowdown of myopia progression, and that effect has been sustained over six years of studies, which is a lot,” Dr. Agarwal said. “We see less than -1.00D total average progression of myopia over six years. This six-year benchmark is important because what we see in a lot of other therapies is great effectiveness for the first six to 12 months, and after the 12 months there can be a drop in efficiency, or inconsistent results from year to year.
“The International Myopia Institute has suggested that if companies are testing myopia management therapies, there should be at least three years of clinical data to see if that efficacy drops off. This makes the six years of MiYOSMART efficacy even more important for practitioners to understand because there’s a proven track record for many years.”
Efficacy of MiYOSMART
From there, Dr. Agarwal went into highlighting the most pertinent findings of HOYA’s ongoing trials for its MiYOSMART lenses.
“I’m really excited to announce that we have an eight-year abstract that was just presented, and the eight-year study will be released later next year,” Dr. Agarwal said.
“We’ll look at the first two years first, and that data has shown that there’s an average 60% reduction of myopia progression compared to the control single vision group. In the first year, there was about 0.18D change in refractive error. In the second year, it was a similar amount, and in the third year there was also 0.18D. So, we can see that that efficacy is sustained and it hasn’t dropped off.
“In the second year of the study, HOYA gave all the children in single vision lenses the option to switch to the DIMS technology. Prior to the switch, these children were experiencing an increase in their refractive errors. As soon as they switched to the DIMS-powered lenses at year two, their myopia plateaued. So, what does that mean? That means, yes, we want to start our patients in myopia control options as early as we can, but we can start at any point and be effective, and that’s huge.
“Then, in year six, HOYA changed up the study again. One group stayed in DIMS, so they’ve been in DIMS all six years of the study, and one group went into single vision lenses. Then, there were the children who started out in single-vision lenses and transitioned to DIMS at year two — that group was split in half, with one half keeping DIMS and one half going back to single-vision lenses. So, ultimately, in year six, there’s four groups that were being studied.
“For these purposes, we’ll call group one the children who wore DIMS all six years. They had less than -1.00D of myopia progression at six years, and they have a 0.6 mm axial length change at six years. That’s 0.1 mm per year, which is the same as what happens in an emmetropic eye, which is phenomenal. So, then we look at group two, which were the children that were in DIMS for three years and then switched them to single vision. The refractive error of the children in group two actually increased, and there was a similar trend with the axial length. What’s important to note, though, is there’s no rebound effect. Their refractive error and axial length increased a bit, but they didn’t reach the group who were never in DIMS, or the age-comparative norms.
“So, what’s the take home message? We have up to 100% myopia reduction. It restores the emmetropic eye growth, and I think that’s why we’re all prescribing myopia control therapies. We want to have the eyeball length match what an emmetropic eye would have, because we’re fearing that risk of pathologies. Lastly, this effect has been sustained over six years, and soon to come over eight years, and the average progression is -1.00D in six years with an emmetropic eye growth. And the biggest thing is there’s no rebound effect.
Eight-Year Data
To wrap things up, Dr. Agarwal shared what’s to be expected from HOYA’s eight-year findings on the MiYOSMART lenses.
“The children in the study are now 16 to 21 years old, and 60% of them who started in the DIMS lenses continued up to the eight years,” she explained. “This tells me that they liked the lenses and they were all satisfied with them.
“So, what do I tell my patients or their parents? When I first started having this conversation with parents, I would give them some personal history as a mother of three kids. My daughter is myopic, and she’s 7 years old. Why did I put her in MiYOSMART? I put her in MiYOSMART because if it’s my child, I don’t want there to be risks. I fear rebound effects, and I want to put her in a therapy that is tried, tested, and true, and that’s exactly what we get with the MiYOSMART lens. I also tell parents that we have the longest running data on this lens. It’s safe and effective, we have over 50 publications on this lens, and it restores that emmetropic eye growth.
“Another thing I like to share with parents is that the MiYOSMART lenses are also available in photochromic options. For those kids who are light sensitive, it’s easy for them to have that one pair that adapts to the sunlight outside.
Dr. Agarwal wrapped things up by summarizing the benefits of the MiYOSMART lenses.
“A prominent ophthalmologist recently said that it’s important to choose treatments to slow the progression of myopia in children based on the best evidence available. I think with MiYOSMART we can see over the eight years of data that this is the best evidence available. Together, let’s protect how our kids and our patients see the world.”
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Dr. Meenal Agarwal is a passionate entrepreneur and the podcast host of “Uncover Your Eyes with Dr. Meenal.” With three clinics across the GTA, her expertise lies in the field of business and growth, laser vision correction, specialty contact lenses, dry eye management, and myopia control. As a leading voice on eye health, Dr. Agarwal has been featured in Times and Forbes. She is also a mom of three. With striving to achieve work life balance, she has been an advocate in mindfulness and well-being in the health care industry. You can listen to Dr. Agarwal’s podcast on any podcast platform and follow her on social media @dr.meenalagarwal. |
