ReviewOptometry and vision science : official publication of the American Academy of Optometry2025
Topical review: Potential mechanisms of atropine for myopia control.
Review in Optometry and vision science : official publication of the American Academy of Optometry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Exposure-response association between outdoor activity time and myopia risk in Chinese children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of global health · 2026Pooled it
- Low-Dose Atropine and Other Interventions for Pediatric Myopia: A Systematic Review and Bayesian Network Meta-analysis of Efficacy and Post-treatment Outcomes.Ophthalmology and therapy · 2026Review
- Current Evidence on Options and Efficacy of Combination Therapy for Myopia Control-A Narrative Review.Ophthalmic & physiological optics : the journal of the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians (Optometrists) · 2026Review
- Network pharmacology and molecular dynamics simulations reveal shared mechanisms and myopia-specific targets of atropine in myopia and dry eye disease.Eye and vision (London, England) · 2026Article
- Short-term effects of atropine on the retina and choroid in young adults.Eye and vision (London, England) · 2026Article
- Atropine Eye Drops in Childhood Myopia Control: A Review.International journal of medical sciences · 2026Review
- Navigating the Core Challenges of Atropine Therapy in Myopia: A Mechanistic and Clinical Analysis of Dose, Response, and Durability.Journal of ophthalmology · 2026Review
- Atropine-Loaded Contact Lens Sustained-Release Systems: A Narrative Review for the New Frontier for Myopia Management.Ophthalmology and therapy · 2026Review
- Inflammation and Immune Pathways in Myopia: An Overview on Pathomechanisms and Treatment Prospects.Clinical reviews in allergy & immunology · 2025Review
- Review
- Scoping Review of the Role of Accommodation and Binocular Coordination in Myopia Onset and Progression.Clinical ophthalmology (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Review
- Nomogram-based prediction of continued axial elongation in children undergoing orthokeratology.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Keeping myopia away: The importance of maintaining hyperopic reserve in premyopia.Taiwan journal of ophthalmologyReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
significanceAtropine is effective at slowing myopia progression in children, but the mechanism of action by which it controls myopia remains unclear. This article is an evidenced-based review of potential receptor-based mechanisms by which atropine may act to slow the progression of myopia.The rising number of individuals with myopia worldwide and the association between myopia and vision-threatening ocular pathologies have made myopia control treatments one of the fastest growing areas of ophthalmic research. High-concentration atropine (1%) is the most effective treatment for slowing myopia progression to date; low concentrations of atropine (≤0.05%) appear partially effective and are currently being used to slow myopia progression in children. While significant progress has been made in the past few decades in understanding fundamental mechanisms by which atropine may control myopia, the precise characterization of how atropine works for myopia control remains incomplete. It is plausible that atropine slows myopia via its affinity to muscarinic receptors and influence on accommodation, but animal studies suggest that this is likely not the case. Other studies have shown that, in addition to muscarinic receptors, atropine can also bind, or affect the action of, dopamine, alpha-2-adrenergic, gamma-aminobutyric acid, and cytokine receptors in slowing myopia progression. This review summarizes atropine's effects on different receptor pathways of ocular tissues and discusses how these effects may or may not contribute to slowing myopia progression. Given the relatively broad array of receptor-based mechanisms implicated in atropine control of myopia, a single mode of action of atropine is unlikely; rather atropine may be exerting its myopia control effects directly or indirectly via several mechanisms at multiple levels of ocular tissues, all of which likely trigger the response in the same direction to inhibit eye growth and myopia progression.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.