Inclusion criteria
Children aged 7-12 years who existed the records in the pediatric ophthalmology unit of the department of ophthalmology for routine ocular examination between January 2013 – January 2015 were consecutively selected for this study. The data of three measurements of children aged 7-12 years who were examined at least once a year for three years using both cycloplegic auto-refractometry (RM-A7000B; Topcon Medical Systems, Inc., Oakland, NJ) and optical biometry (Lenstar LS900; Haag-Streit Diagnostics AG, Koeniz, Switzerland), were included as the cohort data for this study. Only the right-eye data were included for each subject.
The main inclusion criteria of subjects were no additional ocular problems except refractive errors. Furthermore, subjects who had no refractive error at the start of the three years were also included. For this purpose, ptosis, pterygium, dry eye, corneal disease, cataracts, retinal disease, strabismus, contact lens usage history, previous ophthalmic surgery in any eye, or uncooperative children were not included in the study. The common inclusion criteria were (1) children with no systemically compromised and (2) having fully achievable records with auto-refractometry and optical biometry instruments in all observation periods.
Patients who had an anamnesis as previous ocular surgery, ocular trauma, wearing hard contact lenses were not included in the study. Besides, patients with corneal scarring or edema on biomicroscopic examination were also excluded from the study.