Abstract
Purpose :
Fellow eye retinal vein occlusion (RVO) has the potential to cause bilateral vision loss, though little is known about the risk of developing fellow eye RVO or factors affecting time to onset. We performed a retrospective observational clinical study to evaluate the incidence and time to development of fellow eye RVO as well as associated patient characteristics.
Methods :
Records of patients diagnosed with unilateral RVO at a tertiary ophthalmic center were reviewed for subsequent development of RVO in the fellow eye. Demographic, ocular, and systemic characteristics were recorded at the time of RVO diagnosis. Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were used to evaluate the time to development of fellow eye RVO and its relationship with patient characteristics. Odds ratios were used to evaluate patient characteristics among fellow eye and unilateral RVO patients.
Results :
1,044 RVO patients were included in the study, of which fellow eye RVO had a cumulative incidence of 3.7% with a mean time to development of 21.7 months. The average follow-up time was 37.8 months. Patients with branch RVO (BRVO) (n = 519) or central RVO (CRVO) (n = 460) in their primary eye tended to develop the same subtype of RVO in the fellow eye, though the trend was not statistically significant. Fellow eye disease was associated with several patient characteristics including chronic kidney disease (OR 3.78, 95% CI 1.89-7.55), diabetic retinopathy (3.18, 1.57-6.44), autoimmune disease (3.05, 1.45-6.44), hypertension (2.89, 1.02-8.20), hypertensive retinopathy (2.75, 1.17-6.43), and glaucoma (2.51, 1.31-4.80). White race (HR 7.2, 95% CI 3.2-16) and chronic kidney disease (6.0, 2.8-13.0) were associated with greater hazard rates of fellow eye RVO onset, while glaucoma (0.066, 0.033-0.14), autoimmune disease (0.15, 0.064-0.34), and male sex (0.24, 0.11-0.52) were associated with lower hazard rates.
Conclusions :
While fellow eye development of RVO is relatively rare, it typically occurs within the first few years following initial diagnosis and trends toward matching the primary eye RVO subtype, though this result was not statistically significant. Multiple medical conditions and variables were found to be associated with fellow eye disease and its time to onset. These results offer a foundation for predicting patients’ risk for fellow eye RVO and developing preventative practices for patients at increased risk.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.