The Stellest lens from Essilor, unlike conventional lenses, not only ensures that your child can see sharper again. It also ensures that your child’s nearsightedness progresses less quickly.
The advantage is clear. If myopia progresses less quickly, the value of myopia is lower once the child is fully grown. Greater comfort when wearing glasses due to lighter lenses and a lower likelihood of complications go hand in hand with lower spectacle powers.
The Essilor Stellest achieves this effect with a new lens design. This lens design consists of a large classic lens that provides sharp vision. On this lens, however, are very many circularly arranged microlenses that optimize the incidence of light into the eye, unlike conventional single vision lenses.
In fact, the Stellest lens design has been shown to slow myopia by 67% in studies compared to single vision lenses. The arrangements of these microlenses is distributed over 11 rings that do not interfere with the child’s vision. The children with whom wearing tests were carried out got used to these special lenses within a week.
How Does the Essilor Stellest Lens Work?
The additional microlenses, which are arranged in a ring around the center of the lenses, ensure that the light is collected in front of the retina. Classic single vision lenses cause the light rays to be collected behind the retina.
The special thing about this is that only the periphery of the light rays is deflected. In the cases of conventional single vision lenses and also in the case of Stellest lenses, the focus is focused directly centrally on the place of best vision. But the difference happens through the focus in the periphery of the retina.
This can be positioned near-sighted in front of the retina or far-sighted behind the retina. Similar to the Hoya Myosmart lens, the additional refractive power of the lenses in the Stellest provides a myopic defocus.
Although this all sounds insanely complex and many think that one can no longer see well when looking through the glasses in time, this is not the case. It is only a matter of minimal blurring, which is not disturbing.
The optician you trust will certainly have a sample of Stellest lenses ready for you. Here you can see a Stellest lens.
In 2018, Essilor’s R&D team had launched a two-year prospective clinical study on 167 myopic children at its R&D center together with its main partner, Wenzhou Medical University in China. This research illustrates Essilor’s commitment to fighting poor vision and finding concrete solutions to slow the progression of childhood myopia.
After two years, children saved an average of 0.99 diopters in their myopia progression compared to single vision lenses when they wore StellestTM lenses for at least 12 hours a day. This represents an average 67% slowing of myopia progression.
- After the first year, eye growth was similar or slower in 9 out of 10 children who wore Stellest lenses compared to non-myopic children.
- 2 of 3 children who wore Stellest lenses had stable visual correction needs after the first year.
How Do Stellest Lenses Look Like?
Stellest lenses look like ordinary eyeglass lenses. The microlenses are so small and so intelligently arranged that even trained eyes have difficulty recognizing the special lens design. If you look at the lens at an angle, and then look at the reflections of the lens surfaces, you can see the minimal shimmer of the microlenses. An untrained eye will not be able to see any difference from normal glasses.
To be more precise, 1021 microlenses are built into the glass, which you cannot see. These lenses are truly a technical masterpiece.
Experience with Essilor Stellest
What Are the Options?
The options with this lens design are quite limited. You have Airwear (polycarbonate) as the only material option. This material is susceptible to solvents, but is extremely break-resistant and does not shatter. In terms of coatings, there is the Crizal Kids coating, which offers a combination of super anti-reflective, hard coating, and UV protection. The material Airwear also offers UV protection.
the disadvantage with the material Airwear is that it is thicker than the materials Stylis and Fusio. So when it comes to higher values of glasses like -6, -7, or -8 diopters the choice is quite limited. Likewise, the Airwear material has a low abbe value. This may cause your child to experience slight color fringing with the Stellest lens design. These observations become more frequent the higher the eyeglass values are.
How Much Does This Lens Cost?
A pair of Essilor Stellest lenses cost about 560$. Depending on the service level of the optical store the price could vary.
Who Is the Essilor Stellest Suitable For?
- Children with myopia
- Children who have already lost their physiological farsightedness of 0.50 D before the age of six
- Children who have one or two myopic parents