Department of Optometry, University of Johannesburg - Doornfontein Campus, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa.
BMJ Open Ophthalmol. 2022 Apr 1;7(1):e000929. doi: 10.1136/bmjophth-2021-000929. eCollection 2022.
Myopia is a global healthcare concern and effective analyses of dioptric power are important in evaluating potential treatments involving surgery, orthokeratology, drugs such as low-dose (0.05%) atropine and gene therapy. This paper considers issues of concern when analysing refractive state such as data normality, transformations, outliers and anisometropia. A brief review of methods for analysing and representing dioptric power is included but the emphasis is on the optimal approach to understanding refractive state (and its variation) in addressing pertinent clinical and research questions. Although there have been significant improvements in the analysis of refractive state, areas for critical consideration remain and the use of power matrices as opposed to power vectors is one such area. Another is effective identification of outliers in refractive data. The type of multivariate distribution present with samples of dioptric power is often not considered. Similarly, transformations of samples (of dioptric power) towards normality and the effects of such transformations are not thoroughly explored. These areas (outliers, normality and transformations) need further investigation for greater efficacy and proper inferences regarding refractive error. Although power vectors are better known, power matrices are accentuated herein due to potential advantages for statistical analyses of dioptric power such as greater simplicity, completeness, and improved facility for quantitative and graphical representation of refractive state.
近视是一个全球性的医疗保健问题，对屈光度进行有效分析对于评估涉及手术、角膜塑形术、低浓度（0.05%）阿托品和基因治疗等潜在治疗方法的疗效非常重要。本文考虑了在分析屈光状态时需要关注的问题，如数据正态性、转换、离群值和屈光参差。本文简要回顾了分析和表示屈光度的方法，但重点是理解屈光状态（及其变化）的最佳方法，以解决相关的临床和研究问题。尽管在分析屈光状态方面已经取得了显著的进展，但仍有一些需要批判性考虑的领域，其中一个领域是使用屈光力矩阵而不是屈光力向量。另一个领域是有效识别屈光数据中的离群值。通常不考虑屈光力样本中存在的多元分布类型。同样，样本（屈光力）向正态性的转换以及这种转换的影响也没有得到彻底的探索。这些领域（离群值、正态性和转换）需要进一步研究，以提高屈光误差的有效性和正确推断。虽然屈光力向量更为人所知，但本文强调了屈光力矩阵，因为它具有更大的简单性、完整性和改善屈光状态的定量和图形表示的便利性等优势，更有利于屈光力的统计分析。
