0.01% Atropine Treatment For Myopia Management – With Prof Mark Bullimore

Published: November 29th 2019

Professor Mark Bullimore of the University of Houston, Texas USA, tells us more on the complex topic of 0.01% atropine, including its stability as a compound, and takes us on a short journey through chemistry explaining how current studies are using novel formulations to address this issue. Have you heard of ‘heavy water’? I hadn’t, until now! Mark advocates for you to ‘be the doctor’, using the side effects as a gauge of drug efficacy, and even suggests a novel clinical approach in practice to determine the individual patient’s response and tolerance. We also discuss the mismatch (or otherwise) of refractive and axial length control results in atropine studies which don’t appear to be the case in studies of optical interventions, along with communicating the ‘why’ of myopia management through the dioptric effect of control.

Mark Bullimore is a consultant for a number of companies, including Alcon, CooperVision, Essilor, Eyenovia, Genentech, Johnson & Johnson Vision, Novartis, and is the sole owner of Ridgevue Publishing, Ridgevue Technologies, and Ridgevue Vision.

Meet the Authors:

About Kate Gifford

Dr Kate Gifford is an internationally renowned clinician-scientist optometrist and peer educator, and a Visiting Research Fellow at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. She holds a PhD in contact lens optics in myopia, four professional fellowships, over 100 peer reviewed and professional publications, and has presented more than 200 conference lectures. Kate is the Chair of the Clinical Management Guidelines Committee of the International Myopia Institute. In 2016 Kate co-founded Myopia Profile with Dr Paul Gifford; the world-leading educational platform on childhood myopia management. After 13 years of clinical practice ownership, Kate now works full time on Myopia Profile.