CORRELATIONS BETWEEN FAMILIAL REFRACTIVE ERROR AND CHILDRENS NON-CYCLOPLEGIC REFRACTIONS

We examined the spherical equivalent refractions of 237 subjects who b ad been seen four or more times in a longitudinal study of refractive development in normal children. We employed both photorefraction and a utorefraction using a Canon R1 autorefractor. We performed an analysis of variance (F-test for Lack of Fit) to determine the significance of a linear regression in fitting these refractions against three differ ent measures of familial refractive status. One measure included only the number of myopic parents, a second took into account the number of hyperopic parents, and a third included the refractive states of exte nded genetic relatives. We found no significant correlation between ph otorefractive data and familial refractions; however, we did find sign ificant, albeit weak, correlations between all measures of familial re fractive status and infrared autorefractions of their children. A line ar relationship between autorefractive data and overall familial refra ctive state was found to be most significant. Linear regression of chi ldren's autorefractions against a measure of parental myopia and hyper opia was less significant, while a linear model fitting only a measure of parental myopia was least significant, in addition to showing othe r non-linear trends. We attribute the failure to find a significant co rrelation between parent and offspring refractions using children's ph otorefractive data to vignetting by the apparatus and to the short dis tance of the fixation target. We believe the significant correlation p atterns found with the autorefractor reflect the inheritance patterns of parental and familial refractive states.