9.6 million US adults highly myopic: Study

Of those, nearly 820,000 have a degenerative form of the disease and more than 41,000 suffer a complication called myopic choroidal neovascularisation that could cause long-term vision loss, with women at higher risk, researchers said.

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: A recent study says that an estimated 9.6 million adults in the US are highly myopic or suffer from severe nearsightedness.

Of those, nearly 820,000 have a degenerative form of the disease and more than 41,000 suffer a complication called myopic choroidal neovascularisation that could cause long-term vision loss, with women at higher risk, researchers said.

This is the first large-scale study ever done to calculate the real-world prevalence of myopic choroidal neovascularisation in the US, they said.

Myopia has become increasingly common over the past several decades. In the US, the number of nearsighted people rose from about 25 per cent in the early 1970s to 40 per cent around the turn of millennium.

(With PTI inputs)

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