Macular Thickness in Highly Myopic Children.

It appears from the study by Ziylan et al. in this issue that anatomic changes in the retina occur even in very young children with high myopia. These changes include a thicker fovea, a thin inner and/or outer macula, and a smaller macular volume. Whether these macular changes associated with high myopia cause decreased visual acuity even with the appropriate optical correction is unclear from this study. These alterations in the anatomic structure of the macula should be considered when interpreting data obtained from optical coherence tomography when evaluating these children for possible retinal diseases or glaucoma. Further studies with much larger patient populations are necessary to confirm the presence of these anatomic changes in the retina of children with high myopia and also attempt to correlate visual outcome.