Effect of short-term peripheral myopic defocus on ocular biometrics using Fresnel “press-on” lenses in humans

This study assessed axial length and choroidal thickness changes following short-term peripheral myopic defocus in normal adult subjects. Twenty subjects underwent defocus sessions by viewing a full-field projected movie 4 m away for 4 h in the morning, while wearing spectacle lenses, corrected for distance vision in both eyes. The right eye, serving as the test eye, was peripherally defocused using a Fresnel lens overlay of + 3.50 D with a central clear aperture of 11.5 mm (correlating to a clear central visual field of approximately 23°), while the left eye served as the control (with no Fresnel lens overlay). A subset of 10 subjects from the same cohort also underwent additional defocus sessions with + 5.00 D of peripheral defocus. Axial length was measured and radial sub-foveal choroidal scans were obtained before and after the defocus sessions. The increase in axial length of the test eyes were significantly less than the control eyes under both peripheral defocus conditions (p < 0.05). The difference in mean change for choroidal thickness between test and control eyes was not significant for either dioptric condition. Our results demonstrated that short-term peripheral myopic defocus significantly inhibited axial elongation in adult humans, without significant changes in choroidal thickness.