Clinical risk factors for age-related macular degeneration: a systematic review and meta-analysis
By U. Chakravarthy, Tien Yin Wong, A. Fletcher, E. Piault, C. Evans, G. Zlateva, R. Buggage, A. Pleil, P. Mitchell. BMC Ophthalmology, 2010
789 citations recorded by the source corpus.
BackgroundAge-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in Western countries. Numerous risk factors have been reported but the evidence and strength of association is variable. We aimed to identify those risk factors with strong levels of evidence which could be easily assessed by physicians or ophthalmologists to implement preventive interventions or address current behaviours.MethodsA systematic review identified 18 prospective and cross-sectional studies and 6 case control studies involving 113,780 persons with 17,236 cases of late AMD that included an estimate of the association between late AMD and at least one of 16 pre-selected risk factors. Fixed-effects meta-analyses were conducted for each factor to combine odds ratio (OR) and/or relative risk (RR) outcomes across studies by study design. Overall raw point estimates of each risk factor and associated 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated.ResultsIncreasing age, current cigarette smoking, previous cataract surgery, and a family history of AMD showed strong and consistent associations with late AMD. Risk factors with moderate and consistent associations were higher body mass index, history of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and higher plasma fibrinogen. Risk factors with weaker and inconsistent associations were gender, ethnicity, diabetes, iris colour, history of cerebrovascular disease, and serum total and HDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels.ConclusionsSmoking, previous cataract surgery and a family history of AMD are consistent risk factors for AMD. Cardiovascular risk factors are also associated with AMD. Knowledge of these risk factors that may be easily assessed by physicians and general ophthalmologists may assist in identification and appropriate referral of persons at risk of AMD.
Subfields: Epidemiology, Ophthalmology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1a73237caef4a0069d84dbdf668544aea301ac8f
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- HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE (2019, neutral): “Diabetes (32), erectile dysfunction (33), and age-related macular degeneration (34) are other conditions that likely have high BP as one of their causes.”
- Global prevalence of age-related macular degeneration and disease burden projection for 2020 and 2040: a systematic review and meta-analysis. (2014, background): “45,46 In our meta-analysis, there was no evidence of gender diff erence in both early and late prevalence.”