Myopia Control Glasses Passed a U.S. Clinical Trial. Here’s How to Read the Results Like an Eye Doctor.

Parents in Orange County have been asking us about myopia control glasses for years, and the honest answer used to come with a footnote: the strongest evidence came from trials run overseas. That footnote is gone.

On August 20, 2026, JAMA Ophthalmology published the two-year results of a randomized clinical trial run entirely in the United States. Children who wore spectacle lenses with highly aspherical lenslets, the design inside Stellest lenses, saw their nearsightedness progress 71% less than children in ordinary glasses, and their eyes grew 53% less. In the youngest children, the effect was larger still.

Our practice runs clinical trials of our own, so we read a paper like this differently than a press release does. Below is what the study did, what the numbers mean for your child, and where we’d tell you to be careful before drawing conclusions.

Who Was in the Study, and What They Wore

The trial enrolled 159 children between the ages of 6 and 12 at nine sites across the U.S. Every child was already nearsighted, with prescriptions between -0.75 and -4.50 diopters. That’s the range most of our newly diagnosed patients in Costa Mesa and Irvine fall into.

Each child was randomly assigned to one of two lenses. Half got a standard single-vision lens, the kind in every ordinary pair of children’s glasses. Half got a lens with highly aspherical lenslets, or HAL: a clear central zone for everyday viewing, surrounded by rings of tiny lenslets that alter how light lands on the peripheral retina. The lenses look identical from the outside, which made it possible to keep both the families and the examiners unaware of who was wearing which. That’s what “double-masked” means, and it’s the gold standard for a trial like this.

The children wore their glasses as normal everyday eyewear and came back for measurements over two years. Of the 159 who started, 135 finished, an 85% completion rate that’s solid for a pediatric study.

Two Measurements, Two Different Stories

The paper tracked two things, and it’s worth understanding both because they don’t tell the same story.

The prescription. Over two years, children in standard glasses got worse by an average of 0.90 diopters. Children in the myopia control lenses got worse by 0.25 diopters. The gap between them, 0.64 diopters, works out to 71% less progression. If your child is -1.50 today, that’s roughly the difference between finishing second grade near -2.50 and finishing it near -1.75.

The eye itself. Nearsightedness gets worse because the eyeball grows too long from front to back, a measurement called axial length. In standard glasses, the children’s eyes lengthened by an average of 0.45 mm over two years. In the myopia control lenses, 0.21 mm. That’s 53% less growth.

Notice that the second number is smaller than the first. That’s typical of myopia control studies, and it’s the reason we’d rather you anchor on it. The prescription is what your child experiences. Axial length is what determines their risk decades from now. An eye that grows too long stays too long, and higher levels of myopia carry a higher lifetime risk of retinal detachment, glaucoma, cataracts, and myopic macular degeneration. A treatment that cuts eye growth in half is doing real work on the part that matters.

Six-Year-Olds Got the Most Out of It

The most useful detail in the paper, for parents, is buried in the age breakdown. When the researchers split the children into three groups, the youngest responded best:

• Ages 6 to 8: roughly 87% less progression than standard glasses, a difference of just over a full diopter in two years
• Ages 9 to 10: roughly 63% less progression
• Ages 11 to 12: roughly 75% less progression

Younger eyes grow fastest, so they have the most progression to prevent. This lines up with what we see in the exam room, and it’s why we push back gently when a family wants to “see how it goes” with a first-grader’s first pair of glasses. Waiting a year to start costs the year in which treatment would have mattered most. If your child is young and already nearsighted, or has one or two nearsighted parents, that’s the moment to have the conversation.

How to Tell a Strong Trial From a Weak One

Because we’ve run and co-run myopia trials ourselves, here’s the checklist we use, applied to this paper:

• Was it randomized? Yes. Children were assigned by chance, so the two groups started out comparable.
• Was it masked? Yes, on both sides. Neither families nor examiners knew who had which lens.
• Did it measure the eye directly? Yes. Axial length was measured with an optical biometer, the same kind of instrument we use in our own offices, rather than inferred from the prescription.
• Did it run long enough? Two years is the standard benchmark for myopia control, and this is the two-year read of a three-year study.
• Who paid for it? Essilor, the lens manufacturer. That’s normal for a trial submitted to the FDA, and the peer-review process and masking exist precisely to keep sponsored results honest. It’s still worth knowing.
• Was it safe? No serious adverse events in either group, and none of the eye-related events were attributed to the lenses.

On that checklist, this is a strong paper. It’s also the first peer-reviewed publication of the U.S. trial that led the FDA to authorize Stellest in September 2025, the first spectacle lens the FDA has cleared specifically for slowing myopia progression in children. We’ve written before about the FDA-authorized ways to slow myopia, and this is the study behind one of them.

Where We’d Tell You to Be Careful

A good result still has edges, and we’d rather you hear them from us.

• Two years is not the whole childhood. Myopia management typically continues into the mid-to-late teens. The three-year results aren’t published yet, and whether the effect holds at the same rate over the long run is still an open question.
• The study stopped at -4.50. Children with higher prescriptions weren’t enrolled, so the paper can’t speak directly to them. In our practice, those children often do better on a combination of treatments.
• Averages hide individuals. Some children in the treatment group progressed more than the average, and some barely progressed at all. The only way to know which one your child is going to be is to measure.
• The lens works while it’s worn. Like every optical myopia treatment, the effect depends on consistent, full-day wear. A pair that lives in a backpack is a pair of ordinary glasses.

What This Means for Choosing a Treatment

The trial confirms that myopia control glasses are a legitimate first-line option. It does not say they’re the right option for every child. At Insight Vision Optometry, the choice is made with your child’s age, prescription, rate of change, maturity, sports, and family routine on the table, and it usually starts with comparing the options side by side.

• Stellest myopia control spectacle lenses: the lens from this study. A natural first step for younger children, for families who’d rather begin with glasses, and for kids who aren’t ready to handle a contact lens. Parents often ask us how Stellest compares with atropine drops, which is a reasonable place to start.
• Orthokeratology (ortho-k): custom lenses worn overnight that reshape the cornea during sleep, leaving clear vision and nothing in the eye during the day. Often the first thing we discuss with swimmers, wrestlers, and contact-sport athletes. Our doctors led the Euclid Phoenix ortho-k clinical trial, so we know this modality from both sides of the exam chair.
• MiSight 1 day and multifocal soft lenses: FDA-approved daily disposables built for myopia control, plus NaturalVue and custom SpecialEyes designs for prescriptions outside standard ranges.
• Low-dose atropine eye drops: used alone or added to glasses or contacts when a child keeps progressing on one treatment.
• Dual modality therapy for fast progressors, and axial length monitoring at every visit so we’re watching eye growth, not waiting for the prescription to catch up.

We Measure the Same Thing the Trial Did

The reason this trial is convincing is that it measured axial length directly. So do we. Our Costa Mesa office uses a Zeiss AXL WAVE optical biometer to track how much a child’s eye has grown between visits, usually before anyone notices a change in vision. Combined with Pentacam corneal tomography for our ortho-k and custom lens patients, it lets us answer the question every parent actually has, which isn’t “is the prescription worse?” but “is the treatment working?”

If it isn’t, we change it. That’s the difference between myopia management and simply updating a prescription each year, and it’s the same discipline this trial applied to 159 children across the country.

The Team Behind Our Myopia Program

Myopia management is one of the areas our practice has invested in most deliberately, at both our Costa Mesa and Irvine offices.

Dr. Thanh Mai, OD, FSLS leads our myopia management program across both locations. He holds a Fellowship in the International Academy of Orthokeratology and Myopia Control, serves as Vice President of Clinical Innovation at Treehouse Eyes, and sits on the EssilorLuxottica advisory board for Stellest, which means he has followed the lens in this study since well before the paper was published. He is a contributing writer for Review of Myopia Management, a past President of the Orange County Optometric Society, and a clinical instructor at Marshall B. Ketchum University’s Southern California College of Optometry.

Dr. Nathan Schramm, OD, FAAO, FSLS, FBCLA (Costa Mesa) served as principal investigator for the Euclid Phoenix orthokeratology randomized clinical trial and has presented multiple posters on orthokeratology and myopia progression. He is a Fellow of the Scleral Lens Education Society and the British Contact Lens Association, and he focuses on teenage progressors, difficult corneas, and ortho-k fits that haven’t worked elsewhere.

Dr. Hawkin Lui, OD (Irvine) leads myopia care at our Irvine office, with a focus on pediatric and teen myopia control contact lenses and long-term progression monitoring. His own nearsightedness was caught at age 12, which shapes how he counsels parents about early detection.

Dr. Valerie Lam, OD, FAAO, FOVDR (Costa Mesa) is board certified in Pediatric Developmental Vision Care and residency-trained in Pediatrics and Binocular Vision. She manages myopia in children who also have binocular vision or accommodative demands, and in children with special needs.

Dr. Nhi Nguyen, OD works within Treehouse Eyes protocols and lectures on childhood myopia education through her “Behind the Blur” talks.

When Should You Book an Evaluation?

Schedule a myopia evaluation for your child if any of these apply:

• They’re between 6 and 12 and just received their first nearsighted prescription
• Their prescription has gone up from one exam to the next
• One or both parents are nearsighted
• They squint at the board, sit close to the TV, or show other early signs of myopia
• They already wear myopia control glasses from another office, but their axial length has never been measured

That last one matters more than it sounds. The lens in this study worked because someone was measuring. A pediatric eye exam is the place to start either way.

Patient Takeaways

• A double-masked U.S. randomized trial published in JAMA Ophthalmology in August 2026 followed 159 children ages 6 to 12 for two years.
• Myopia control glasses with highly aspherical lenslets slowed prescription progression by 71% and eye growth by 53% compared with standard single-vision lenses.
• Children ages 6 to 8 saw the largest benefit, about 87% less progression, which argues for starting early rather than waiting.
• The trial measured axial length directly, which is the number that carries lifetime risk. We measure it the same way at every myopia visit.
• This is the study behind the FDA’s 2025 authorization of Stellest, the first myopia control spectacle lens cleared in the U.S.
• Two years of data is strong but not final. Higher prescriptions weren’t studied, results vary child to child, and the lens only works when it’s worn.
• Glasses are one of several proven options. Ortho-k, MiSight 1 day, low-dose atropine, and combination therapy are all on the table, chosen for the child in front of us.

Schedule a Myopia Evaluation in Orange County

Insight Vision Optometry sees pediatric patients at both Orange County offices. Our Costa Mesa location is built for children, with a dedicated children’s exam room, a full pediatric optical, and a prize desk that has convinced more than a few reluctant kids that the eye doctor is fine, actually.

This study measured two years. If your child was just diagnosed, those two years start now.

Office Details and Appointments

Insight Vision Optometry, Costa Mesa
3151 Airway Ave., Ste. M3, Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 486-3315
Book at Costa Mesa

Insight Vision Optometry, Irvine
4940 Irvine Blvd., Suite 102, Irvine, CA 92620
(714) 730-9580
Book at Irvine

Source: Shen J, Hunt C, Young G, Drobe B. Spectacle Lenses With Highly Aspherical Lenslets for Myopia Control: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Ophthalmology. Published online August 20, 2026. Read the study