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Rethinking the limitations of atropine in myopia control: new insights on binocular vision anomalies

Eye volume 39, pages 1880–1881 (2025)Cite this article

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Myopia is currently one of the major public health issues globally. Holden et al. projected that the global myopic population will reach 4.758 billion by 2050, meaning that approximately half of the world’s population will be myopic [1]. One study indicated that once children develop myopia, East Asians and Caucasians will experience progression rates of −1.00 D and −0.50 D per year, respectively [2]. These findings indicate that slowing the progression of myopia has become a critical modern health concern.

In 2000, the Taiwan Ophthalmological Society recommended using atropine as a myopia treatment tool. Subsequently, the prescription rate of atropine for children aged 4–18 in Taiwan increased from 4.5% in 2000 to 10.3% in 2007, representing a 2.29-fold increase. After nearly 20 years, atropine remains the primary method for controlling myopia [3, 4]. However, despite its long-term and widespread use, the increasing prevalence of myopia in Taiwan suggests that the real-world effectiveness of atropine may be limited by additional factors. Between 1983 and 2017, Taiwan conducted eight prevalence surveys on myopia among children aged 3–18. In the study by Tsai et al. which collected and analyzed data from these eight surveys, the results consistently showed increasing trends in the prevalence of myopia across all age groups. The most recent survey revealed myopia rates of 92.90% and 90.34% among junior high and high school students, respectively [5].

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Acknowledgements

The authors used ChatGPT (OpenAI) for language refinement and improving the clarity of English expression during the preparation of the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Optometry, Chung Hwa University of Medical Technology, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC

    Guan-Cheng Lin, Li-Te Yin & Kun-Shiang Chen

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  1. Guan-Cheng Lin
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  2. Li-Te Yin
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GCL—Writing and review. LTY—Review. KSC—Review.

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Correspondence to Guan-Cheng Lin.

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Lin, GC., Yin, LT. & Chen, KS. Rethinking the limitations of atropine in myopia control: new insights on binocular vision anomalies. Eye 39, 1880–1881 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-025-03864-5

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