Abstract
Purpose :
To assess the prevalence of myopic retinopathy and its associations in rural Central India in a population based study.
Methods :
The Central India Eye and Medical Study is a population based study in rural Central India. Of the 5885 subjects that met the study criteria, 4711 participated, resulting in a response rate of 80.1%. Myopic retinopathy was graded from Category 0 to Category 4 according to the grading by the Pathologic Myopia Study Group.
Results :
Readable fundus photographs were available on 4561 (96.8%) subjects (8846 eyes). Myopic retinopathy was present in 15 (0.17±0.04%; 95% confidence interval (CI):0.08%,0.26%) eyes of 11 (0.02±0.07%; 95%CI:0.01,0.04) subjects. 8 of 15 (53%) eyes had a best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) of <20/60 and ≥20/400, and 5 (33%) eyes had a BCVA of <20/400. Correspondingly, 4 (36%) subjects had low vision (BCVA in the better eye of <20/60 and ≥20/400) and one (9%) subject was blind (BCVA in the better eye <20/400) due to myopic retinopathy. Myopic retinopathy occurred only in eyes with an axial length of >26 mm. Eyes with myopic retinopathy had significantly larger optic discs than eyes without myopic retinopathy (3.69±1.22mm2 versus 2.52±0.77mm2;P<0.001). In binary regression analysis, higher prevalence of myopic maculopathy was associated with longer axial length (P<0.001; odds ratio (OR):19.6; 95%CI:4.6,82.9), higher prevalence of open-angle glaucoma (P=0.02;OR:16.1;95%CI:1.51,170), lower best corrected visual acuity (expressed in logMAR) (P=0.03;OR:0.06;95%CI:0.004,0.75), and female gender (P=0.002). If level of education was added to the model, it was not significantly associated with myopic retinopathy (P=0.17;OR:0.53;95%CI:0.22,1.31). If gender was dropped from the model, higher prevalence of myopic maculopathy was associated with lower educational level (P=0.04;OR:0.44;95%CI:0.20,0.97).
Conclusions :
Prevalence of myopic retinopathy in rural Central India was low (11/4561 or 0.02%). It correlated with a 16 times higher frequency of open-angle glaucoma, after adjusting for axial length and gender. If gender was excluded from the analysis, higher prevalence of myopic retinopathy was associated with lower educational level. This latter finding distinguishes adult myopic maculopathy from the myopia seen in school children which is strongly associated with higher educational level.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.