Abstract
Purpose:
To provide estimates of age- and gender-specific prevalence of posterior nuclear, cortical and posterior subcapsular (PSC) lens opacities in a population-based sample of Chinese-American adults of 50 years and older.
Methods:
All participants underwent a detailed home interview and a comprehensive clinical examination that included an assessment of the presence of and severity of lens opacification, using the slit lamp-based Lens Opacities ClassificationSystem II (LOCS II). All lens changes (including pseudophakia/aphakia), any nuclear, PSC, and cortical opacities, and nuclear only, PSC-only, and cortical-only opacities were evaluated. Frequency distributions and chi-square test analyses were used to determine the age- and gender-specific prevalence for each opacity type.
Results:
Of the 4,582 who completed the ophthalmic examination 4234 had LOCS II grading. Of these 4234 participants, 7 (0.2%) had PSC-only opacities, 927 (21.9%) had nuclear-only opacities, 386(9.1%) had cortical-only opacities, and 531 (12.5%) had mixed-type opacities. The prevalence of all lens changes (48.0%) increased with older age (P<0.0001). Of all participants with mixed opacities, 126 (23.7%) had monocular visual impairment and 50 (9.4%) had binocular impairment. Four hundred fifty four (9.9%) individuals had undergone cataract extraction in at least one eye.
Conclusions:
Our data provide the first population-based estimates of prevalence and severity of lens opacities in Chinese Americans. Nuclear opacities were the most common type. Chinese Americans have higher age-specific prevalence of nuclear opacities compared with Non-Hispanic Whites, Afro-Caribbeans and Latinos.