The prevalence and risk factors for pterygium in an adult Chinese population in Singapore: the Tanjong Pagar survey☆
Section snippets
Methods
Singapore is a city-state located at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula in South East Asia. The country has a constant tropical climate with a monthly mean temperature of 27.4 degrees Celsius, daily mean sunshine of 5.6 hours, and daily mean total global radiation of 463.3 mW/cm2 (Meterological Service, Ministry of Environment, Singapore). This investigation was part of a population-based, cross-sectional study of ocular disorders among Chinese people living in the Tanjong Pagar district of
Results
Among the 2000 names initially selected, 46 had died and 235 had moved to addresses outside Tanjong Pagar district before or during the study period. Two persons were considered unfit for examination, leaving 1717 subjects who were eligible to participate in this study. Of this number 1072 were examined in a clinic setting, and an additional 160 subjects were examined at home, with 18 subsequently examined in the clinic as well. The total number of subjects examined in this study was 1232, and
Discussion
We found that 7% of ethnic Chinese older than 40 years in Singapore had pterygium in either eye, with 3% having pterygium in both eyes. There are few population-based studies to compare our rates.4 In the Solomon Islands (located 6 degrees south of the equator), the prevalence was 0.3%.7 On the other hand, in the Blue Mountains Eye Study, a similar overall prevalence of 7.3% was observed in white people aged 49 years and above in a suburb of Sydney, Australia (located 33 degrees south of the
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank David Machin, MSc, PhD, and Tze-Pin Ng, MFPHM, MD, for their statistical help and advice. We would also like to thank Judy Hall, COT, for training technical staff and providing quality assurance services and Rachel Ng, Bernie Poh, and the Clinical Audit department, Singapore National Eye Centre, for their data collection and analysis.
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The National Medical Research Council, Singapore, funded this work through a grant to the Singapore Eye Research Institute. The British Council for the Prevention of Blindness, London, England, provided additional financial support.