Original articleRetinal Vessel Caliber Is Associated with the 10-year Incidence of Glaucoma: The Blue Mountains Eye Study
Section snippets
Study Population
The BMES is a population-based cohort study of eye diseases and other health outcomes in an urban Australian population ≥49 years of age. Details of the BMES have been described elsewhere.1 Baseline participants (n = 3654) represented 82.4% of those eligible in 2 postcode areas of the Blue Mountains (New South Wales, Australia). This study was approved by the Western Sydney Area Health Service Human Research Ethics Committee; written, informed consent was obtained from all participants.
Of 3654
Results
There were 82 persons (104 eyes) who developed incident OAG by the 10-year follow-up; 23 persons developed OAG by the time of the 5-year follow-up examinations, and a further 59 persons developed OAG by the time of 10-year follow-up examination.
As shown in Table 2, persons who developed OAG over this period were older and had higher systolic and diastolic blood pressures or higher IOP at baseline; persons who developed OAG were also more likely to be female. The vertical C:D ratio at baseline
Discussion
It is well recognized that vascular risk factors have a potentially important role in the pathogenesis of OAG,3, 4 with many studies showing associations of glaucoma with hypertension, altered ocular hemodynamics (e.g., reduced blood flow), vasospasm, and systemic vascular diseases (e.g., migraine).3, 4 In this study, we showed that narrowed retinal arteriolar caliber, measured quantitatively from baseline photographs, is associated with a greater long-term risk of developing OAG in an older
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Manuscript no. 2012-282.
Financial Disclosure(s): The authors have no proprietary or commercial interest in any of the materials discussed in this article.
Supported by the Australian National Health & Medical Research Council, Project grants ID 974159, 211069, 457349, and the Centre for Clinical Research Excellence ID529923 – Translational Clinical Research in Major Eye Diseases; Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) receives Operational Infrastructure Support from the Victorian Government, Australia. This study was also supported by KAKENHI 22591960.