Features of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the General Adults and Their Dependency on Age, Sex, and Smoking: Results from the German KORA Study

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a vision impairing disease of the central retina characterized by early and late forms in individuals older than 50 years of age. However, there is little knowledge to what extent also younger adults are affected. We have thus set out to estimate the prevale...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Brandl, Caroline, Breinlich, Valentin, Stark, Klaus J., Enzinger, Sabrina, Aßenmacher, Matthias, Olden, Matthias, Grassmann, Felix, Graw, Jochen, Heier, Margit, Peters, Annette, Helbig, Horst, Küchenhoff, Helmut, Weber, Bernhard H. F., Heid, Iris M.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2016
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5125704/

id	pubmed-5125704
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-51257042016-12-15 Features of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the General Adults and Their Dependency on Age, Sex, and Smoking: Results from the German KORA Study Brandl, Caroline Breinlich, Valentin Stark, Klaus J. Enzinger, Sabrina Aßenmacher, Matthias Olden, Matthias Grassmann, Felix Graw, Jochen Heier, Margit Peters, Annette Helbig, Horst Küchenhoff, Helmut Weber, Bernhard H. F. Heid, Iris M. Research Article Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a vision impairing disease of the central retina characterized by early and late forms in individuals older than 50 years of age. However, there is little knowledge to what extent also younger adults are affected. We have thus set out to estimate the prevalence of early AMD features and late AMD in a general adult population by acquiring color fundus images in 2,840 individuals aged 25 to 74 years of the Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg project (KORA) in South Germany. Among the 2,546 participants with gradable images for each eye, 10.9% (n = 277) had early AMD features (applying the 9-step Age-Related Eye Disease Study Severity Scale), 0.2% (n = 6) had late AMD. Prevalence increased with age, reaching 26.3% for early AMD features and 1.9% for late AMD at the age 70+. However, signs of early AMD were found in subjects as young as 25 years, with the risk for early AMD features increasing linearly by years of age in men, and, less consistent with a linear increase, in women. Risk for early AMD features increased linearly by pack years of smoking in men, not in women, nor was there any association with other lifestyle or metabolic factors. By providing much sought-after prevalence estimates for AMD from Central Europe, our data underscores a substantial proportion of the adult population with signs of early AMD, including individuals younger than 50 years. This supports the notion that early AMD features in the young might be under-acknowledged. Public Library of Science 2016-11-28 /pmc/articles/PMC5125704/ /pubmed/27893849 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0167181 Text en © 2016 Brandl et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Brandl, Caroline Breinlich, Valentin Stark, Klaus J. Enzinger, Sabrina Aßenmacher, Matthias Olden, Matthias Grassmann, Felix Graw, Jochen Heier, Margit Peters, Annette Helbig, Horst Küchenhoff, Helmut Weber, Bernhard H. F. Heid, Iris M.
spellingShingle	Brandl, Caroline Breinlich, Valentin Stark, Klaus J. Enzinger, Sabrina Aßenmacher, Matthias Olden, Matthias Grassmann, Felix Graw, Jochen Heier, Margit Peters, Annette Helbig, Horst Küchenhoff, Helmut Weber, Bernhard H. F. Heid, Iris M. Features of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the General Adults and Their Dependency on Age, Sex, and Smoking: Results from the German KORA Study
author_facet	Brandl, Caroline Breinlich, Valentin Stark, Klaus J. Enzinger, Sabrina Aßenmacher, Matthias Olden, Matthias Grassmann, Felix Graw, Jochen Heier, Margit Peters, Annette Helbig, Horst Küchenhoff, Helmut Weber, Bernhard H. F. Heid, Iris M.
author_sort	Brandl, Caroline
title	Features of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the General Adults and Their Dependency on Age, Sex, and Smoking: Results from the German KORA Study
title_short	Features of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the General Adults and Their Dependency on Age, Sex, and Smoking: Results from the German KORA Study
title_full	Features of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the General Adults and Their Dependency on Age, Sex, and Smoking: Results from the German KORA Study
title_fullStr	Features of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the General Adults and Their Dependency on Age, Sex, and Smoking: Results from the German KORA Study
title_full_unstemmed	Features of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the General Adults and Their Dependency on Age, Sex, and Smoking: Results from the German KORA Study
title_sort	features of age-related macular degeneration in the general adults and their dependency on age, sex, and smoking: results from the german kora study
description	Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a vision impairing disease of the central retina characterized by early and late forms in individuals older than 50 years of age. However, there is little knowledge to what extent also younger adults are affected. We have thus set out to estimate the prevalence of early AMD features and late AMD in a general adult population by acquiring color fundus images in 2,840 individuals aged 25 to 74 years of the Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg project (KORA) in South Germany. Among the 2,546 participants with gradable images for each eye, 10.9% (n = 277) had early AMD features (applying the 9-step Age-Related Eye Disease Study Severity Scale), 0.2% (n = 6) had late AMD. Prevalence increased with age, reaching 26.3% for early AMD features and 1.9% for late AMD at the age 70+. However, signs of early AMD were found in subjects as young as 25 years, with the risk for early AMD features increasing linearly by years of age in men, and, less consistent with a linear increase, in women. Risk for early AMD features increased linearly by pack years of smoking in men, not in women, nor was there any association with other lifestyle or metabolic factors. By providing much sought-after prevalence estimates for AMD from Central Europe, our data underscores a substantial proportion of the adult population with signs of early AMD, including individuals younger than 50 years. This supports the notion that early AMD features in the young might be under-acknowledged.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2016
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5125704/
_version_	1613743551018958848

Features of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the General Adults and Their Dependency on Age, Sex, and Smoking: Results from the German KORA Study

Similar Items