David Berntsen of the University of Houston and colleagues conducted a cohort study and concluded that there is no rebound worsening of myopia symptoms in adolescents after discontinuing multifocal soft contact lens wear. The BLINK2 trial involved 235 adolescents (59 percent female) aged 11–17 (median 15) years. All had previously participated in the BLINK randomized clinical trials, during which they were randomly assigned to wear single-focus or multifocal contact lenses for three years. In this study, all subjects wore strong (+2.50 diopters) multifocal lenses for two years, followed by single-focus lenses for one year. Disease dynamics were monitored using axial length and spherical equivalent refractive error. The results were published in JAMA Ophthalmology.
At baseline in BLINK2, the mean axial length was 25.9 (SD 0.9) millimeters, and the spherical equivalent refractive error was -3.40 (SD 1.40) diopters. After switching from multifocal to single-focal lenses, the axial length increased by an average of 0.03 (95% CI 0.01–0.05) millimeters over one year, regardless of BLINK group (p = 0.81). Myopia progression over the same period was -0.17 (95% CI -0.22 to -0.12) diopters, also regardless of baseline group (p = 0.57). This progression is within the expected range for the participants' ages and is not indicative of rebound myopia. Thus, multifocal lenses can be used from childhood until the elongation of the eyeball and the progression of myopia cease, the authors of the study conclude.
