Authors of a large multicentre Indian study of 0.01% atropine drops reported a 64% reduction in myopia progression in children in their first year of treatment, with efficacy increasing by 11% more in the second year.

A total of 732 myopes aged 6-14 years from 20 centres were included in the two-year study. Researchers reported that children with higher levels of myopia and younger ages at baseline were less responsive to treatment. However, authors noted several limitations to their retrospective study, including a lack of randomisation, use of self-comparisons rather than setting up a control group, use of various cycloplegia protocols and autorefraction machines, and lack of axial length measurement.

The study was published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.