A large nationwide cohort study from Japan found that myopia is associated with a substantially increased long-term risk of developing open-angle glaucoma and of requiring subsequent glaucoma surgery. Using health insurance claims data from more than 14 million adults aged 40 years or older followed for up to 7.5 years, the analysis provides quantitative estimates of glaucoma incidence and surgical intervention across refractive error categories in routine clinical practice.

According to the study, published recently in Ophthalmology, participants were categorized into 3 groups based on validated diagnostic algorithms: nonmyopia, myopia, and high myopia, defined as a spherical equivalent of −6.0 diopters or worse. Of the total cohort, nearly 7.5 million patients had myopia, and 373,232 were classified as having high myopia. The nonmyopia group was older on average (mean age 68.8 years) compared with the myopia (56.8 years) and high myopia (52.9 years) groups. Women accounted for more than 60% of participants across all groups, and systemic comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia were more prevalent in the nonmyopic population.

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