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If you are concerned that your child will be nearsighted, a new artificial intelligence model developed from millions of eyesight records could help predict whether your offspring will need glasses.
    Myopia is the most common visual impairment in children, and China has an unprecedented rate of nearsightedness. A recent WHO report showed that about 600 million Chinese, almost half the population, are nearsighted, including more than 70 percent of high school and college students, and 40 percent of primary school children.
    Current approaches to curbing vision loss include eyedrops, glasses, contact lenses and surgery. However, while these can be effective, they have side effects, such as higher rates of recurrence, eye infections, sensitivity decline, sore eye and other ailments.
    If nearsightedness could be predicted, medical professionals could intervene with appropriate treatments to help reduce the risk of high myopia, which is measured by a focusing power of -6 diopters, a measurement of the optical power of a lens, and higher.
    After analyzing 1.25 million eyesight records over three years, researchers from Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong province have identified myopia development rules, and built an AI model to predict the condition in children and teenagers.
    The study, published in the international journal PLOS Medicine two years ago, involved children ages 5 to 18 who had eyesight checks from 2005 to 2015 in eight of the largest ophthalmic centers in the southern province. The researchers discovered that nearsightedness usually occurs at age 7, and rapidly develops before age 10. It can grow to -3 diopters during the teenage years and up to -6 diopters in the 20s. More recently, the research team has developed an AI model for myopia prediction and made it public, demonstrating how it works by using the case of a 5-year-old boy who was nearsighted and began wearing glasses at -1 diopter last year. The myopia prediction model will be put into clinical use soon.
    It is held that the AI model could also help combat the limited number of specialists. By the end of 2014, China had just 36,000 ophthalmologists, with 70 percent of them working in big cities.