Prevalence of Age-related Macular Degeneration in Portugal: the Coimbra Eye Study - Report 1

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the age and gender-specific prevalence of early and late age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in a Portuguese population-based sample.

Methods: All patients older than 55 years old of a Portuguese primary health-care unit were invited to participate. Responders underwent complete ophthalmic examination and fundus imaging. AMD and age-related maculopathy (ARM) were defined according to the International ARM Epidemiological Study Group Classification. An innovative semi-automated software (Retmarker AMD Research, Critical Health, SA, Portugal) was used. The age and gender adjusted prevalences for ARM and for neovascular and atrophic forms of AMD were calculated.

Results: Of the 4370 eligible subjects, 3000 participants were included (68,6% response rate) and 2975 were included in the analysis with a mean age of 68.9 ± 8.7 years. The overall prevalence of early and late AMD was 17.71% and 0.67% respectively. Neovascular and atrophic AMD accounted for 0.42% and 0.29% of individuals, respectively. The highest prevalence of advanced AMD was among those aged ≥75 years (1.23% for NV-AMD; 0.66% for GA). Over 82% of the study population showed no features of ARM, or only drusen <63 µm.

Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first epidemiologic study of AMD in a Portuguese population. The prevalence of early form in this population-based Portuguese sample was similar to that observed in other large-scale population-based studies. However, the prevalence of late AMD was lower than found in similar studies.

Keywords: 412 age-related macular degeneration • 414 aging: visual performance • 463 clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: prevalence/incidence