You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Clinical science
A nationwide cohort study of cigarette smoking and risk of neovascular age-related macular degeneration in East Asian men
  1. Tyler Hyungtaek Rim1,2,
  2. Ching-Yu Cheng3,4,5,
  3. Dong Wook Kim6,
  4. Sung Soo Kim1,7,8,
  5. Tien Y Wong3,4,5
  1. 1Department of Ophthalmology, Severance Hospital, Institute of Vision Research, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
  2. 2Department of Ophthalmology, National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
  3. 3Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences Academic Clinical Program (Eye ACP), Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore
  4. 4Singapore Eye Research Institute, Singapore National Eye Centre, Singapore, Singapore
  5. 5Department of Ophthalmology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  6. 6Department of Policy Research Affairs, National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital, Goyang, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
  7. 7Yonsei Healthcare Big Data Based Knowledge Integration System Research Center, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
  8. 8Institute of Convergence Science, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
  1. Correspondence to Professor Sung Soo Kim, Department of Ophthalmology, Severance Hospital, Institute of Vision Research, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-752, Korea; semekim{at}yuhs.ac and Professor Tien Yin Wong, Singapore National Eye Centre, 11 Third Hospital Avenue, Singapore 168751; wong.tien.yin{at}singhealth.com.sg

Abstract

Background Few longitudinal studies have evaluated the relationship between cigarette smoking and risk of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) among Asian populations. This study aimed to prospectively evaluate the association between cigarette smoking and risk of neovascular AMD among Korean men.

Methods Men between the ages of 45 and 79 years included in the Korea National Health Insurance Service database from 2002 through 2013. We compared hazard ratios (HR) for neovascular AMD between 64 560 past/current and 64 560 never smokers by 1:1 propensity-matched analysis and 85 267 past/current and 72 347 never smokers by unmatched cohort and propensity-adjusted analysis.

Results The risk of neovascular AMD among past/current smokers was 50% higher than that among never smokers (propensity-adjusted whole cohort analysis: HR, 1.48; 95% CI 1.22 to 1.79; propensity-matched analysis: HR, 1.50; 95% CI 1.22 to 1.84), with the risk more pronounced among current than past smokers (current vs past smokers: propensity-adjusted whole cohort analysis, HR, 1.66; 95% CI 1.35 to 2.04 vs HR, 1.15, 95% CI 0.87 to 1.52; propensity-matched analysis, HR, 1.65; 95% CI 1.32 to 2.05 vs HR, 1.21; 95% CI 0.90 to 1.63). Duration of smoking and daily cigarette consumption was associated with the incidence of neovascular AMD in a dose-dependent manner (p<0.001 for trend).

Conclusions Cigarette smoking is associated with a strong risk of neovascular AMD among Korean men. These data highlight the public health impact of smoking on blindness in Asia.

  • Epidemiology
  • Retina

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjophthalmol-2016-309952

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors THR, C-YC, DWK, SSK and TYW contributed towards study design. THR, DWK, SSK and TYW contributed towards data acquisition and/or research execution. THR, C-YC, DWK, SSK and TYW performed data analysis and/or interpretation. THR, C-YC, SSK and TYW contributed towards manuscript preparation. SSK and TYW assume overall responsibility of the manuscript.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Ethics approval This study adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the institutional review board of the NHIS Ilsan Hospital, Goyang, Korea, which waived the requirement for written informed consent.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement SSK had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.