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RVO doubles cardiovascular mortality risk for some patients, study finds
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Patients younger than 70 years of age who experience a retinal vein occlusion may have a two times higher risk of death from cardiovascular conditions, a large-scale study found. The results suggest that some patients may benefit from careful cardiovascular risk assessment, the study authors said.
Jie Jin Wang, MMed, PhD, deputy director of the Centre for Vision Research at the University of Sydney, and colleagues in Australia and the United States conducted the study. The researchers reviewed data of 8,384 patients age 43 to 97 years who participated in either the Beaver Dam Eye Study or the Blue Mountains Eye Study.
The presence of RVO was determined using retinal photographs; rates of vascular mortality were determined from death certificates, according to the study, published in the March issue of Ophthalmology.
Dr. Wang and colleagues found that 96 patients (1.1%) had a RVO at baseline, with 71 patients having a branch RVO. Over 10 to 12 years' follow-up, 1,312 patients (15.7%) died of cardiovascular or cardiovascular-related conditions.
The cumulative rate of cardiovascular mortality was significantly higher among patients with RVO at baseline. These patients had a 30.2% incidence of cardiovascular mortality compared with a 15.5% incidence among patients without RVO, the authors reported.
After adjusting for age, gender, body mass index and several other factors, the baseline presence of RVO was associated with a twofold higher risk of cardiovascular death only among patients age 43 to 69 years, they noted.
"The association of RVO and cardiovascular mortality ... could be explained in part by the pathogenesis of RVO. Retinal vasculitis is an important cause of RVO in young adults, and systemic inflammation has been found associated with all-cause or cardiovascular mortality in the elderly," the authors said.
RVO was not associated with cerebrovascular death, although men had a non-significant twofold increased risk over women for all age groups, the authors noted. This could be partly due to a previously documented increased risk of stroke-related death among men, they said.