Bellaire Family Eye Care Reaches 100 AL Measurements in 111 Days, Shares Practical Insights for Staff Development and Patient Communication

SAN RAMON, CALIF—A unique collaboration between CooperVision, Topcon Healthcare, and several U.S. eye care practices is uncovering how incorporating axial length (AL) measurements into myopia management can build additional confidence among everyone involved—optometrists, staff, and parents.

Topcon recently placed its MYAH optical biometer and corneal topographer in select U.S. offices that were successfully prescribing CooperVision^® MiSight^® 1 day soft contact lenses even before they had a way to measure axial length. Each practice then reported various data points to the companies, including quantitative and qualitative measures, to unlock new insights for sharing across the profession.

Bellaire Family Eye Care, located in suburban Houston, led the way. It became the first participant to reach 100 AL measurements in less than three months.

“Over the past several years, we have built a significant myopia management practice, with about half of our total patient volume being children. MiSight^® 1 day has played a big part in that success. It’s easy to get started with the lens, and no special tools are required,” said Bellaire’s Aamena Kazmi, OD.

“At the same time, we want to keep exploring new ways to extend our myopia management reach—being at the forefront is important to our patients and our practice. Axial length measurements are the gold standard of assessing myopia risk and progression, and adding this capability has brought us to the next level. AL more precisely pinpoints signs of myopia progression for the doctor and acts as another educational resource for parents who may have questions about their child’s condition, progression, and treatment effectiveness.”

She reports that some parents have become attached to AL measures, remembering them from the first visit or putting a reminder on their phone to ask about them.         

Additionally, the change in AL can be an important metric and value add when discussing fee schedules. “It’s empowering to educate parents that you are utilizing gold standard technology to track myopia progression. It differentiates us, further justifies the fees, and gives us confidence that our treatment efforts are successful. It also can help us monitor patients that haven’t developed myopia yet, but who have consecutive AL measurements that suggest accelerated, myopic eye growth,” Dr. Kazmi explains.

“Any eye care professional who can prescribe a single vision contact lens can prescribe MiSight^® 1 day with no additional equipment or tools. Embracing that will help extend myopia control to every child who needs it,” said Justin Kwan, OD, FAAO, Senior Manager, Myopia Management for CooperVision. “For practices who are already down that path, incorporating axial length measures helps them become even more successful. It creates deeper knowledge of how the disease is progressing—and slowing—within their own teams and parents alike.”

CooperVision MiSight^® 1 day is the first and only soft contact lens approved* by the U.S. FDA to slow the progression of myopia in children aged 8-12 at the initiation of treatment.^1†

The Topcon MYAH offers an efficient, affordable, and repeatable way to capture baseline axial length measures and monitor change over time. The instrument also includes corneal topography, pupillometry, anterior cornea wavefront analysis and contact lens fitting software making it a comprehensive device for monitoring axial length, assessing visual quality and fitting specialty contact lenses.

CooperVision and Topcon plan to share additional insights from Bellaire Family Eye Care and other program participants during 2023 through a series of professional education features, lectures, and virtual events.

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*U.S. Indications for Use: MiSight^® 1 day (omafilcon A) soft (hydrophilic) contact lenses for daily wear are indicated for the correction of myopic ametropia and for slowing the progression of myopia in children with non-diseased eyes, who at the initiation of treatment are 8-12 years of age and have a refraction of -0.75 to -4.00 diopters(spherical equivalent) with ≤ 0.75 diopters of astigmatism. The lens is to be discarded after each removal

^† Compared to a single vision 1-day lens over a 3-year period.

About Topcon Healthcare

Topcon Healthcare sees eye health differently. Our vision is to empower providers with smart and efficient technologies for enhanced patient care. Keeping pace with the ever-changing landscape of the healthcare industry, we offer the latest integrated solutions including advanced multimodal imaging, vendor-neutral data management and groundbreaking remote diagnostic technology.

A globally-oriented business, Topcon is focused on developing solutions towards solving societal challenges in the mega-domains of healthcare, agriculture, and infrastructure. In healthcare, these challenges include increasing eye disease, rising medical costs, access to healthcare and physician shortages. By investing in value-driven innovations, Topcon works to enable people to enjoy good health and a high quality of life.

About CooperVision
CooperVision, a division of CooperCompanies (NYSE:COO), is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of contact lenses. The company produces a full array of daily disposable, two-week and monthly soft contact lenses that feature advanced materials and optics, and premium rigid gas permeable lenses for orthokeratology and scleral designs. CooperVision has a strong heritage of addressing the toughest vision challenges such as astigmatism, presbyopia, childhood myopia and highly irregular corneas; and offers the most complete portfolio of spherical, toric and multifocal products available. Through a combination of innovative products and focused practitioner support, the company brings a refreshing perspective to the marketplace, creating real advantages for customers and wearers. For more information, visit coopervision.com.

About CooperCompanies
CooperCompanies (“Cooper”) is a global medical device company publicly traded on the NYSE (NYSE:COO). Cooper operates through two business units, CooperVision and CooperSurgical. CooperVision brings a refreshing perspective on vision care with a commitment to developing a wide range of high-quality products for contact lens wearers and providing focused practitioner support. CooperSurgical is committed to advancing the health of women, babies and families with its diversified portfolio of products and services focusing on medical devices and fertility & genomics. Headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., Cooper has a workforce of more than 14,000 with products sold in over 100 countries. For more information, please visit www.coopercos.com.

Media Contact
Mike McDougall, APR, Fellow PRSA, FAAO, McDougall Communications
[email protected] or +1-585-434-2150

¹ Chamberlain P, Peixoto-de-Matos SC, Logan NS, Ngo C, Jones D, Young G. A 3-year Randomized Clinical Trial of MiSight Lenses for Myopia Control. Optom Vis Sci. 2019 Aug;96(8):556-567.