The effect of parental history of myopia on eye size of pre-school children: a pilot study

Purpose: To evaluate parental history of myopia as a predictor of refractive error and eye size in Chinese pre-school children. Methods: A total of 514 pre-school children (aged 2.3-6.4 years) were examined. Parental history of myopia, amount of near work performed, refractive status and ocular biometry were recorded. Results: There was no significant difference in spherical equivalent refraction (SER) among children with no myopic parents (mean + 0.94 +/- 0.05 D), one myopic parent (mean + 0.77 +/- 0.07 D) and two myopic parents (mean + 0.79 +/- 0.12 D) (p = 0.102) after controlling for age and amount of near work. Further, children with more myopic parents did not have longer eyeballs (p = 0.335). Conclusions: In this study in Chinese pre-school children, parental history of myopia was not found to be associated with a myopic refractive error or increased eyeball length. Further studies with larger sample sizes would help to confirm these results.