SILMO Singapore 2023 New thoughts on myopia control, new trends in style

by Matt Young, COOKIE Magazine Publisher

Years ago, an industry associate told me: “Matt, I think you might be in the wrong field.”

I was wearing something trademark funky at the time, and their ophthalmology booth and engagement with doctors were quite conservative. While I didn’t take it to heart, I always wondered: Would there be a larger place for me someday in our eye care space?

Fast forward to SILMO Singapore, and I was in my element. SILMO, which stands for “Salon International de la Lunetterie, de l’Optique Oculaire et du Matériel pour Opticiens” in French, is the premier eyewear show in the world, known for its annual flagship show in Paris.

Eyewear, of course, traverses the scientific and fashion realms. So there were the scientifically intellectual rigors of myopia control, which I do enjoy. But there was also the style side of the business — not exactly in outerwear like jackets — but definitely in frames. In fact, ahead of the show, I received two care packages of frames to check out. One was from my optometrist friend from Hanoi, Nguyen Huyen Trang, who has a line of frames called Martian. The other was from a family friend of Media Director Robert Anderson, Dr. Randy Rondowsky, who sent us a great mix of colorful, high-quality sunnies called Zbetr!

Suffice it to say, I may never have to pay full price for another set of frames in my lifetime, nor will my eyes ever have to suffer from a lack of style ever again.

My myopic puberty

I’ve heard a lot of comments about myopia control over the last year, starting with the International Myopia Conference 2022 meeting in Rotterdam, all the way through the Asia-Pacific Myopia Management Symposium, also in Singapore.

Still, it has been hard to consider myopia as a critical disease, when all I had to do as a 13 year old in 1993 was to start wearing glasses, and perhaps identify a bit more with one of my favorite teenage movies: Revenge of the Nerds

So when some new factoids hit me during SILMO Academy from a new friend, Prof. Mark Bullimore, Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston College of Optometry, I began to talk to my inner 13-year-old self about vision.

So, listen up, Young Matt. According to Mark:

• Higher myopes have worse vision even when fully corrected. That makes performing everyday tasks more complex. You don’t have high myopia now; if you do one day, you may be sorry.

• Myopic maculopathy is the greatest risk of higher levels of myopia. That’s something much more serious, and so take your myopia seriously, kid.

• Each diopter myopia increases the risk of POAG by 20%, the risk of PSC by 21%, and the risk of retinal detachment by 30%. Believe it or not, my child, you will be writing about all this someday. So, go ahead and look up those acronyms.

It’s probably fair I’m retrospectively talking to myself, because as Mark said, “We used to dread talking about [myopia]. We didn't have the therapies 20 years ago.”

So I may have been out of myopia control luck, but kids these days are in a way better position for treatment.

Phone a friend

Right in the middle of SILMO Academy, I had to call Dr. Rajeev Prasad about his upcoming APCO regional optometry meeting in New Delhi in June. It was interesting to hear Rajeev’s take on myopia control, which was a bit of a devil’s advocate position.

“Not every child is a myopia management patient,” he said. “There is overaggressive treatment. The downside is nowadays, every ophthalmologist in India has started prescribing atropine.”

Long-term use of atropine does have side effects, he said. Of course, atropine is only one modality of myopia control.

Low-level red-light therapy is a new modality that many were intrigued by at SILMO Academy, as presented by ophthalmologist Prof. Mingguang He of China.

It is indeed a “promising alternative treatment for myopia control in children with good user acceptability and no documented functional or structural damage,” according to his peer-reviewed paper in the journal Ophthalmology

Meanwhile, Biten Kathrani, Head of R&D, Vision Care APAC at Johnson & Johnson, just had to stand nearby for me to remember that J&J just won the Ophthalmology Product Innovation accolade from Healthcare Asia Medtech Awards 2023.

The award featured the soft therapeutic lens innovation ACUVUE Abiliti 1-Day Soft Therapeutic Lenses (Johnson & Johnson, California, USA) for myopia management. With RingBoost technology, designed for children ages 7 to 12 years, the lenses have been shown to reduce axial elongation by 0.105 mm on average over six months.

Spectacles are also an important part of the myopia control equation. So standing with May Zhang, Global Head of Professional Affairs, HOYA Vision Care, I was reminded of their MiYOSMART (HOYA Vision Care, Tokyo, Japan) spectacle lenses for kids. Important to note, as I do remember at least one speaker at SILMO Academy suggesting spectacles make more sense than atropine for kids.

Old habits die hard

Here’s a sampling of some of the fashions our Creative Director Chris McBride and I were enjoying: opportunity to write about style, I led with science! Time to change that up.

1. Matt and Chris: Finally, a place that values the intersection of fashion and eye care. Great to be covering SILMO with Chris McBride. Enjoying the heck out of this! Like our sunnies? They’re called The Jig & Sprinter from Zbetr. Check out https://zbetr. com/ website for cool frames.

2. Something about these Tide Optical frames makes Chris look like the human version of a cartoon character.

3. I really liked these orange KlassiC. Eyewear Frames; however, my face itself looked a little too orange.

4. I have to say, it wasn’t just the look, but the feel of the frames by LOOK that made me a believer. Alessandro Giacon, Export Manager of LOOK, explained that companies like his in northern Italy had a long history of eyewear manufacturing, contributing to the robust quality of frames.

5. Our Creative Director Chris McBride apparently found his long-lost family member Michael McBride, shown here. He’d typically say “no relation” but with Harry Potter frames at stake, Chris would like to say, “relation!” to get the family and friends discount.

But first, it’s important to note that this was SILMO’s first venture into Singapore. Eric Lenoir, Directeur du Salon for SILMO, expected a couple thousand delegates to show up. That did not seem to be the case in its first year, but there were more than 200 exhibiting companies, so definitely lots to see for anyone attending.

Editor’s Note

SILMO Singapore 2023 was held from April 12 to 14 in Singapore. Reporting for this story took place during the event.

Admittedly, these fashions got Chris and I fired up to keep our SILMO style going at Marquee Nightclub into the wee hours of the night, where we saw some fellow SILMOers in an unofficial capacity. After all, it didn’t take an official gala dinner to make SILMO a happening place for happening people. What a breath of fresh eyec-air!