The Orthokeratology Society of Oceania held its bi-annual congress on the Gold Coast at the beginning of October this year. This two and a half day congress was well supported by many optometrists, doctors and orthokeratology researchers and entrepreneurs from all over the world. I was lucky enough to attend this years’ congress, together with our very own Lachlan Hoy, who also gave an engaging presentation on Saturday morning.
Other speakers came from all corners of the globe: United States, Canada, New Zealand, China and Italy. The information conveyed throughout the jam-packed congress included the demonstration of protocols for fitting complex prescriptions and recent research into the myopia-controlling effects of orthokeratology. Question and Answer panels were also a terrific opportunity to ask some specific questions and hear the rigorous discussion between the various experts in the field.
An interesting take-home message from Associate Professor Patrick Caroline (from the Pacific University College of Optometry in Forest Grove Oregon) was the comparison of the corneal changes that occur with orthokeratology with the width of a strand of hair. For a patient with a -4.00DS prescription, the orthokeratology lens is only required to relatively flatten the central cornea by 14 microns. It certainly does not sound like a lot, especially knowing that the average human hair is only 75 microns thick!