Characteristics of peripheral refractive errors of myopic and non-myopic Chinese eyes

AbstractInterest in peripheral refractive errors has increased as it was hypothesized that peripheral hypermetropia might provide a stimulus for axial elongation (Smith et al., 2005), this study was to determine relative peripheral refractive errors (RPRE) of the eyes of a group of Chinese children and adults. Central and peripheral (20°, 30°, 40° at nasal, temporal, superior and inferior meridians of retina) refractive errors were obtained from cyclopleged eyes of 40 children and 42 adults with a Shin-Nippon auto-refractor. Only right eyes were considered. Central spherical equivalent (M) was used to classify the eyes as Moderate Myopia (MM, −3.00<M⩽−6.00D), Low Myopia (LM, −0.50⩽M⩽−3.00D), Emmetropia (E, −0.50<M<+0.50D) and Low Hypermetropia (LH, +0.50<M⩽+2.00D). RPRE was calculated as the difference in M between the central and peripheral positions. The results showed that in both children and adults, horizontally, the RPRE profile for the MM group had a relative hypermetropic shift and in contrast, the profile for LH demonstrated a relative myopic shift. The difference in the profile between the MM and LH group was significant (p