Demographic Differences of Dry-Eye Disease Between Pediatric and Adult Patients in the IRIS Registry

Abstract

Purpose : Dry-eye disease (DED) is a chronic progressive ocular surface disorder that has been extensively investigated in the adult population, but in the pediatric population, DED prevalence and its characteristics remains largely unstudied. It is a significant healthcare problem which impairs visual functioning and can severely affect patients’ quality of life at any age. The American Academy of Ophthalmology IRIS® Registry (Intelligent Research in Sight) was used to investigate differences in demographics and prevalence of DED between pediatric and adult patients.

Methods : A total of 4,795,979 patients with at least one diagnosis of DED between 2013-2019 was identified by ICD code in the IRIS Registry. Of these, 203,171 were pediatric patients, defined as patients under the age of 18 (PDED) at the time of initial diagnosis, while 4,592,808 were adults, defined as patients aged 18 or older (ADED). The earliest-recorded diagnosis of DED for each patient was included, and demographics that were investigated included biological sex, race, ethnicity, and U.S. geographical region. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's chi-squared tests, and two-sample proportions tests were conducted to compare key demographic distributions between the ADED and PDED cohorts.

Results : Demographic characteristics were compared between the ADED and PDED groups. The average age at onset for ADED patients was 61.06 (±14.75) years, while the average age at onset for PDED patients was 12.51 (±3.86) years. Characteristics with the largest discrepancies between ADED and PDED patients included female sex (68.12% vs. 58.08%), male sex (31.55% vs. 41.58%), White race (67.06% vs. 50.24%), Hispanic/Latino ethnicity (9.03% vs. 17.04%), and Northeast region residency (21.04% vs. 32.20%), respectively. Comparisons of each category within each demographic between ADED and PDED patients were statistically significant (all p<0.01), with the exception of unreported sex (p=0.48).

Conclusions : Our results characterize significant differences within major demographic factors between pediatric DED patients and adult DED patients in the IRIS Registry. There was a significantly higher proportion of females and Whites in adults with DED as compared to pediatric patients with DED, and a significantly lower proportion of Hispanic/Latino individuals and Northeast region-dwelling individuals in adults with DED as compared to pediatric patients with DED.

This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.