Traumatic cycloplegia and myopic anisometropia

The pathogenesis of myopia and the mechanism of atropine in preventing myopic progression have long been widely discussed. Recent studies with animals have pointed to the possible role of the muscarinic receptor of the retina itself in regulating eye growth. This paper stresses that, for myopia in humans, the importance of accommodation still holds. Twenty-five recovered cases of previous traumatic hyphema, occurring under age 16, were collected. For four or more years, the patients were examined for ocular refraction, axial length, intraocular pressure, gonioscopy and accommodation time; the latter was measured with an accommodo-polyrecorder. Data from injured eyes and fellow eyes were compared and analyzed. The results indicated that, in the injured eyes the refractive status was invariably less myopic than in the fellow eye, and was not related to intraocular pressure. In injured eyes the accommodation time was highly correlated with the extent of angle recess. And the difference of anisometropia was also related to the extent of angle recess. These observations showed that there was a significant correlation between the degree of myopic anisometropia and the impairment of accommodation.