The effect of parental history of myopia on eye size of pre-school children: a pilot study.
To evaluate parental history of myopia as a predictor of refractive error and eye size in Chinese pre-school children. 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. 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). 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.