Retinal Vein Occlusion is Associated with Low Blood High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol: A Nationwide Cohort Study

To investigate association between the development of retinal vein occlusion (RVO) and blood high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C).

A retrospective, nationwide, population-based cohort study.

This study was set in the Republic of Korea and included 23,149,403 people ≥20 years of age who underwent the Korean National Health Screening Program examination between January 2009 and December 2012. Among them, the RVO group was composed of patients with an initial diagnosis of RVO made between 2009 and 2015 (n = 117,639). The earliest claim with an RVO diagnostic code was considered as the incident time. The predictive value of HDL-C level for RVO was analyzed using hazard ratios. The primary outcome measure was the incident cases of RVO.

Subjects with RVO were generally older; had high body mass index, waist circumference, fasting blood glucose, blood pressure, total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride values, and low glomerular filtration rate and HDL-C values; and were more likely to experience diabetes mellitus and hypertension compared with the non-RVO group. The fully adjusted hazard ratio of RVO was 1.12 (95% confidence interval 1.10-1.14) in the lowest quartile of HDL-C versus in the highest quartile. The association between the development of RVO and HDL-C was higher those with a younger age, male sex, current smoking habit, diabetes mellitus, and hypercholesterolemia. In addition, we observed a significant synergistic effect of low HDL-C level with obesity and hypertension.

This is the first nationwide population-based epidemiologic study evaluating the association between HDL-C level and the risk of RVO development. A significant association between low HDL-C and RVO development was found.