Elsevier

Ophthalmology

Volume 116, Issue 7, July 2009, Pages 1366-1369
Ophthalmology

Original article
Population-based Incidence of Macular Holes

Presented in part as a poster at: The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Annual Meeting, April 2008, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ophtha.2009.01.052Get rights and content

Purpose

To determine the incidence of full-thickness macular holes in Olmsted County, Minnesota.

Design

Population-based retrospective chart review (cross-sectional study).

Participants

Ninety-four eyes of 85 patients who were residents of Olmsted County, Minnesota.

Methods

A population-based retrospective chart review was performed for all diagnoses of macular hole between 1992 and 2002 among residents of Olmsted County, Minnesota. Yearly incidence rates for each given age and sex group were determined by dividing the number of cases within that group by the estimated total Olmsted County resident population of the group for that given year.

Main Outcome Measures

Documented clinical diagnosis of a macular hole.

Results

Idiopathic macular holes occur at an age- and sex-adjusted incidence in 7.8 persons and 8.69 eyes per 100,000 population per year in Olmsted County, Minnesota. The female-to-male ratio was determined to be 3.3 to 1, and bilateral idiopathic macular holes occurred in 11.7% of patients and accounted for 20.9% of the affected eyes.

Conclusions

This study uniquely determined the incidence of macular holes in a predominantly Caucasian population.

Financial Disclosure(s)

The author(s) have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article.

Section snippets

Materials and Methods

A population-based retrospective chart review was performed for all diagnoses of macular hole between 1992 and 2002 among residents of Olmsted County, Minnesota. Institutional review board approval was obtained for this study. Only patients who provided research authorization according to Minnesota state statues were included, and all work was in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. A search for the diagnosis of macular hole (International

Results

Ninety-four eyes with macular hole in 85 patients met inclusion criteria for the study. Among these, 86 macular holes (91.5%) in 77 patients (90.6%) were idiopathic. Non-idiopathic macular holes were attributed to the following causes: retinal detachment repair (3), secondary to trauma (2), macular translocation surgery (1), unspecified eye surgery (1), and chronic inflammation (1) (Table 1).

Discussion

The age- and sex-adjusted overall incidence of macular holes in Olmsted County, Minnesota, between 1992 and 2002, was found to be 9.38 eyes per 100,000 population per year. Idiopathic macular holes were found to have an incidence of 8.69 eyes per 100,000 population per year.

Currently available epidemiologic information about macular holes focuses on prevalence and varies widely. In the Beaver Dam Eye Study, macular hole prevalence was 2.9 per 1000 (Moss SE, Klein R, personal communication,

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Manuscript no. 2008-162.

Financial Disclosure(s): The author(s) have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article.

Funded in part by Research to Prevent Blindness, Inc., and the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. The sponsor or funding organization had no role in the design or conduct of this research.

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