AIM: To evaluate the effects of microlens design of peripheral defocus modifying spectacle lenses (PDMSLs) and non-microlens design of PDMSLs on controlling myopia progression in children and adolescents. METHODS: A systematic search was carried out in the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, CNKI, and Web of Science databases. The search targeted randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and cohort studies (CTs) that explored the effects of PDMSLs on myopia control among children and adolescents. The Cochrane risk-of-bias tool and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale were employed to evaluate the risk of bias in the included studies. The published biases of the included studies were evaluated using Egger’s test. RESULTS: Nine studies (7 RCTs, 2 CTs) were included, involving 4332 participants in the PDMSLs group and 7317 participants in the single vision lenses (SVLs) group. Meta-analysis showed that PDMSLs with microlens design had lower change in spherical equivalent refraction (SER) than SVLs at 6, 12, 18, and 24mo after wearing glasses, with reductions of 0.19 D (95%CI: 0.14 to 0.24, P<0.00001), 0.36 D (95%CI: 0.25 to 0.46, P<0.00001), 0.43 D (95%CI: 0.32 to 0.55, P<0.00001), and 0.51 D (95%CI: 0.33 to 0.69, P<0.00001), respectively. The changes in axial length (AL) were also lower in PDMSLs compared to SVLs, with reductions of -0.09 mm (95%CI: -0.13 to -0.04, P=0.0002), -0.15 mm (95%CI: -0.21 to -0.08, P<0.00001), -0.27 mm (95%CI: -0.34 to -0.20, P<0.00001), and -0.29 mm (95%CI: -0.38 to -0.20, P<0.00001), respectively. There was no significant difference between the non-microlens group and SVLs in controlling the changes of SER and AL in myopia (both P>0.05). CONCLUSION: The synthesized evidence indicates superior myopia management outcomes with microlens design of PDMSLs compared to both SVLs and non-microlens design of PDMSLs in children and adolescents.