TORONTO—With Canada the first country to establish myopia management as the standard of care and offering more approved treatments to slow the progression of myopia than the U.S., Toronto was an optimal location for THE Myopia Meeting held here Sunday, Nov. 6. Co-presented by Review of Myopia Management (RMM) and CRO (Clinical & Refractive Optometry), THE Myopia Meeting featured a full day of COPE-approved continuing education courses interspersed with manufacturer workshops. Following an introduction by RMM’s chief medical editor Dwight Akerman, OD, MBA, FAAO, FBCLA, FIACLE, THE Myopia Meeting began with a CE presentation by Debbie Jones, BSc, FCOptom, on “Myopia Control—Where We Are Now and Where We Are Going.”

Her COPE course started by reiterating what many of the 180 attendees already knew: Canada is the only country that has stated a standard of care for myopia management.
 
She then shared analogies to help patients and parents understand the dangers that can result from an elongated eye by comparing it to stretching plastic wrap on a bowl or blowing up a balloon. Her presentation then detailed a step-by-step guide for practitioners to follow when encountering a child with progressing myopia—assess risk, modify behavior, initiate management and monitor.
 
 
 RMM’s chief medical editor Dr. Dwight Akerman chaired THE Myopia Meeting in Toronto.
  
Vishakha Thakrar, OD, FAAO, FSLS, in her presentation on “Managing Myopia Control Challenges and Complications,” reiterated Canada’s myopia management standard of care along with the available treatments, adding the genetic and environmental factors influencing myopia and the fact that the pandemic increased its prevalence.
 
The man who literally wrote the book on myopia management, Langis Michaud, OD, MSc, author of Managing Myopia One Child at a Time, began his CE course by imploring attendees, “You have to do something instead of single vision lenses. You have to catch these myopes early and act on day one.” Because “Any myopia progression before the age of 10 is a time bomb!” he said. “Do everything you can not to go over 26mm,” he added, referring to the size of the eyeball at which it will start to cause complications later in life.
 
The final speaker of the day-long THE Myopia Meeting was Stephanie Ramdass, OD, MS, MBA, FAAO, FSLS, on “Tips for Troubleshooting Myopia Management.” “Myopia spectacles really do have an advantage here in Canada,” she said, referencing the spectacle lenses available there that are not yet FDA approved in the U.S. “If we can target that 6- to 8-year-old group we can make a difference.”
 

Professor Debbie Jones, BSc, FCOptom, started her presentation “Myopia Control – Where We Are Now and Where We Are Going” by referring to the World Council of Optometry’s standard of care for myopia management.
  
Manufacturer workshops were presented by event sponsors CooperVision, EssilorLuxottica, and Hoya. Johnson & Johnson Vision was also a sponsor and shared information about its Acuvue Abiliti lenses newly available in Canada.
 
GMAC (the Global Myopia Awareness Coalition) also sponsored THE Myopia Meeting in Toronto this month. As GMAC Board chair, Dr. Millicent Knight described how the organization has been building consumer awareness around myopia management since its founding in 2018. “I’ve never seen such collaboration of industry members,” she said.
 
To read the full coverage of the meeting from Review of Myopia Management click here.