Large increase in common ocular diseases shown as population ages

Medicare beneficiaries had at least one of three major eye diseases (diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration) at the end of a nine-year follow-up, a dramatic increase from baseline assessments, according to results of a large study.

Paul P. Lee, MD, and colleagues at Duke University sampled 20,325 Medicare beneficiaries, 10,476 of whom were available for analysis nine years later. The study was designed to describe the prevalence of three chronic eye diseases across time. Claims data were analyzed to indicate one of the three conditions. Transitions between severity stages were also evaluated.

At baseline, the prevalence of diabetes was 14.5%. At final follow-up, the prevalence of diabetes had increased to 25.6%. People with diabetes who also had diabetic retinopathy increased from 6.9% at baseline to 17.4% at final follow-up.

The incidence of primary open-angle glaucoma increased from 4.6% at baseline to 13.8% at endpoint. The percentage of glaucoma suspects increased from 1.5% to 6.5%, as did the percentage of narrow-angle glaucoma, which at baseline had a 0.7% incidence rate, increasing to 2.7% at the end of the follow-up period.

The prevalence of age-related macular degeneration increased from 5% to 27.1% by the end of the study.

Overall, the proportion of subjects with at least one of the three diseases increased from 13.4% at baseline to 45.4% by the end of the study.

The study is published in the September issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.