Refractive Error and Anterior Chamber Depth as Risk Factors in Primary Angle Closure Disease: The Chinese American...

The risk of primary angle closure disease (PACD) rises rapidly with greater hyperopia while remaining relatively low for all degrees of myopia. Refractive error (RE) is useful for angle closure risk stratification in the absence of biometric data.

To assess the role of RE and anterior chamber depth (ACD) as risk factors in PACD.

Chinese American Eye Study participants received complete eye examinations including refraction, gonioscopy, amplitude-scan biometry, and anterior segment ocular coherence tomography imaging. PACD included primary angle closure suspect (≥3 quadrants of angle closure on gonioscopy) and primary angle closure/primary angle closure glaucoma (peripheral anterior synechiae or intraocular pressure >21 mm Hg). Logistic regression models were developed to assess associations between PACD and RE and/or ACD adjusted for sex and age. Locally weighted scatterplot smoothing curves were plotted to assess continuous relationships between variables.

Three thousand nine hundred seventy eyes (3403 open angle and 567 PACD) were included. The risk of PACD increased with greater hyperopia [odds ratio (OR) = 1.41 per diopter (D); P < 0.001] and shallower ACD (OR = 1.75 per 0.1 mm; P < 0.001). Hyperopia (≥ + 0.5 D; OR = 5.03) and emmetropia (-0.5 D to +0.5 D; OR = 2.78) conferred a significantly higher risk of PACD compared with myopia (≤0.5 D). ACD (standardized regression coefficient = -0.54) was a 2.5-fold stronger predictor of PACD risk compared with RE (standardized regression coefficient = 0.22) when both variables were included in one multivariable model. The sensitivity and specificity of a 2.6 mm ACD cutoff for PACD were 77.5% and 83.2% and of a +2.0 D RE cutoff were 22.3% and 89.1%.

The risk of PACD rises rapidly with greater hyperopia while remaining relatively low for all degrees of myopia. Although RE is a weaker predictor of PACD than ACD, it remains a useful metric to identify patients who would benefit from gonioscopy in the absence of biometric data.