Purpose:
To study the relationship between retinal vessel diameters and cigarette smoking.
Methods:
The Inter99 study comprised an age- and sex-stratified sample of 13,016 participants residing in 11 suburban municipalities of the south-western part of Copenhagen County. Of 6784 subjects aged 30-60 years who volunteered to participate in the main study, a subgroup of 970 subjects participated in the study. We investigated the relation between fundus photographic retinal vessel diameters and cigarette smoking (pack years), with and without adjustment for arterial blood pressure, and other covariates. Vessel diameters were expressed as central retinal artery equivalent diameter (CRAE), central retinal vein equivalent diameter (CRVE), and artery-to-vein diameter ratio (AVR). Data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis.
Results:
Cigarette smoking was significantly and positively associated with CRVE (p<0,001), CRAE (p=0,014) and AVR (p<0,001). After adjustment for age, body mass index, mean arterial blood pressure and gender, there was still significant and positive association between smoking and CRVE (p=0,017). This was not the case with CRAE (p=0,244) and AVR (p=0,236). Average CRVE increased by 0, 24 % when pack years increased by one year.
Conclusions:
In the Inter99 Eye study, cigarette smoking was significantly and positively associated with central retinal vein equivalent diameter (CRVE), even after adjusting for confounding factors. Cigarette smoking does affect other arteries, but not retinal arteries, suggesting that auto regulation can be linked to this exception in microvasculature.
Keywords: retina • blood supply • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: risk factor assessment