Purpose
To study the effectiveness of high-dose atropine for reducing eye growth in Mendelian myopia in children and mice.

Methods
We studied the effect of high-dose atropine in children with progressive myopia with and without a monogenetic cause. Children were matched for age and axial length (AL) in their first year of treatment. We considered annual AL progression rate as the outcome and compared rates with percentile charts of an untreated general population.

We treated C57BL/6J mice featuring the myopic phenotype of Donnai–Barrow syndrome by selective inactivation of Lrp2 knock out (KO) and control mice (CTRL) daily with 1% atropine in the left eye and saline in the right eye, from postnatal days 30–56. Ocular biometry was measured using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography. Retinal dopamine (DA) and 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) were measured using high-performance liquid chromatography.

Results
Children with a Mendelian form of myopia had average baseline spherical equivalent (SE) –7.6 ± 2.5D and AL 25.8 ± 0.3 mm; children with non-Mendelian myopia had average SE −7.3 ± 2.9 D and AL 25.6 ± 0.9 mm. During atropine treatment, the annual AL progression rate was 0.37 ± 0.08 and 0.39 ± 0.05 mm in the Mendelian myopes and non-Mendelian myopes, respectively. Compared with progression rates of untreated general population (0.47 mm/year), atropine reduced AL progression with 27% in Mendelian myopes and 23% in non-Mendelian myopes.

Atropine significantly reduced AL growth in both KO and CTRL mice (male, KO: −40 ± 15; CTRL: −42 ± 10; female, KO: −53 ± 15; CTRL: −62 ± 3 μm). The DA and DOPAC levels 2 and 24 h after atropine treatment were slightly, albeit non-significantly, elevated.

Conclusions
High-dose atropine had the same effect on AL in high myopic children with and without a known monogenetic cause. In mice featuring a severe form of Mendelian myopia, atropine reduced AL progression. This suggests that atropine can reduce myopia progression even in the presence of a strong monogenic driver.

Chris de Zeeuw
10.1111/opo.13115
High-Dose Atropine, Mendelian Myopia, Axial Length (AL) Progression, Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography, Retinal Dopamine (DA) and DOPAC Levels