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Iris atrophy may be risk factor for cataract
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Iris atrophy may be a previously unrecognized risk factor for nuclear, cortical and posterior subcapsular age-related cataract, according to a population-based study.
Giuseppe Giuffrè, MD, and colleagues at the University of Palermo in Italy analyzed 27 potential risk factors for cataract in people at least 40 years old living in Casteldaccia, Sicily. People with advanced lens opacities were compared with an identical number of subjects with or without early cataract who served as controls.
Univariate analysis showed that myopia and iris atrophy were significantly associated with nuclear cataract. A positive correlation with cortical cataract was found with iris atrophy, corticosteroid use, pseudoexfoliation syndrome and familial occurrence. Myopia, iris atrophy, corticosteroid use and familial occurrence of cataract were positively correlated with posterior subcapsular cataract. After multivariate analysis, iris atrophy was the only risk factor across all three types of cataract.
The study is published in the October issue of Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica.