[Retinal bioelectrical activity in children with congenital myopia]

Congenital myopia is a particular form of short sight that forms in the intrauterine development of a fetus and that is generally characterized by high myopia, a longer anteroposterior axis (APA) of the eye, and its fundal changes. The authors have studied the functional state of the central and peripheral retinal segments in children with congenital myopia by electric retinography (ERG). They examined 23 patients (46 eyes) aged 6 to 16 years, who had moderate and high congenital myopia, the diagnosis in whom had been established in their early life, with various ophthalmoscopic manifestations: without macular changes, with the hyperpigmented macula, an undifferentiated macular region, and acquired chorioretinal dystrophy. Visometry, refractometry, ophthalmoscopy, ultrasound biometry (APA measurement), and mixed, local, and multifocal ERG were performed. Four patients were diagnosed as having congenital persistent nocturnal blindness of the Schubert-Bornstein type. Varying bioelectrical activity changes in the retinal macular region were revealed in congenital myopia both in the absence of ophthalmoscopic changes and with the changes in the fundus of the eye as macular hyperpigmentation, undifferentiated macular region, and central chorioretinal dystrophy. There was a moderate and high inverse correlation between the parameters of bioelectrical activity (the amplitude of b wave of the maximum ERG, that of b wave of local ERG and the retinal density of a P1 component in all rings) on the one hand, and the spherical equivalent of refraction and the length of ADA, on the other.