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Prevalence and risk factors of retinal arteriolar emboli: the Singapore Malay Eye Study
Ning Cheung1, Lyndell Lim, Jie Jin Wang
1Centre for Eye Research Australia, University of Melbourne, Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.
Purpose:
To examine the prevalence and risk factors of retinal arteriolar emboli, a risk predictor of stroke, in an Asian population.
Design:
Population-based cross-sectional study.
Methods:
Retinal emboli were ascertained from retinal photographs obtained from both eyes of 3,265 Asian Malays, aged 40 to 80 years, according to a standardized protocol. Risk factors were assessed from detailed standardized interviews, clinical examinations, and laboratory investigations.
Results:
The overall prevalence of retinal emboli was 0.6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.58 to 0.62). A finding of retinal emboli was strongly associated with increasing age (P = .005, for trend), but age-stratified prevalence rates were still lower than those reported from previous population-based studies of White persons. After adjusting for age and gender, the presence of retinal emboli was associated with cigarette smoking (odds ratio [OR], 5.96; 95% CI, 1.75 to 20.32), elevated total cholesterol (OR, 5.21; 95% CI, 1.93 to 12.82), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (OR, 2.98; 95% CI, 1.20 to 7.39), and self-reported history of angina (OR, 5.67; 95% CI, 1.62 to 19.91). These associations remained significant in multivariate analysis with additional adjustment for other risk factors.
Conclusions:
Retinal emboli are less common in Asians than in similarly aged White persons, but are associated with similar cardiovascular risk factors.
