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Ambient air pollution associated with central retinal artery occlusion
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Ambient air pollution may be associated with an increased risk of being diagnosed with central retinal artery occlusion, a study found.
The retrospective population-based cohort study involved 96 patients newly diagnosed with CRAO, culled from a database of those registered in Taiwan’s National Health Insurance program.
Among other data, the study authors gathered hourly ambient concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, NO2, SO2 and O3 from dozens of pollution monitoring stations and used the data from stations within 20 km of patients’ homes.
The chance of CRAO onset significantly increased during a 5-day period after a rise of 1 part per billion in NO2 (P = .03).
In patients with diabetes and after a multi-pollutant adjustment, the largest risk increases came after 4 days (P = .02) to 5 days (P = .03) of increased NO2 levels.
After 1 day of increased SO2 levels, the risk rose significantly for patients with hypertension and those age 65 years and older (P = .03 and P = .02, respectively).
The authors added that patients with hyperlipidemia could be particularly affected by an association between air pollution and CRAO. They suggested policy changes could help alleviate the potential harm.
“Altering activity patterns on high pollution days, reducing traffic density or reducing fossil fuel combustion may reduce the risk of vision-devastating CRAO,” they wrote. – by Joe Green
Disclosure : The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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Cheng H, et al. Ophthalmology. 2016;doi:10.1016/j.ophtha.2016.08.046.
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