Risk of developing open-angle glaucoma in patients with carotid artery stenosis: A nationwide cohort study

PLoS One. 2018 Apr 23;13(4):e0194533. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194533. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Whether carotid artery stenosis (CAS) is an independent risk factor for open-angle glaucoma remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the association between CAS and the development of open-angle glaucoma in the Taiwanese population-based cohort derived from a longitudinal database containing claims data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance (NHI) program; this study enrolled 2093 patients with CAS and 8372 patients without CAS matched by age and sex from 1999 to 2010. Diagnoses of open-angle glaucoma (OAG) were identified during a follow-up period lasting through December 31, 2013. A Cox proportional hazards model was applied to evaluate the hazard ratio (HR) for OAG in the CAS cohort compared with the matched cohort. We found that the HR for open-angle glaucoma in the CAS cohort compared with the matched cohort. The adjusted HR for OAG in the CAS cohort was 1.50 (95% confidence interval, 1.11-2.02, P = .008). The Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that the CAS cohort had a higher cumulative incidence of OAG than did the matched cohort during the follow-up period (log-rank test, P < .001). We concluded that CAS is a significantly independent risk factor for the development of OAG. Our finding is clinically important for the aging population, which has an increasing prevalence of CAS.

MeSH terms

  • Age Factors
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Carotid Stenosis / diagnosis*
  • Carotid Stenosis / epidemiology
  • Carotid Stenosis / etiology
  • Cohort Studies
  • Databases, Factual
  • Female
  • Glaucoma, Open-Angle / complications
  • Glaucoma, Open-Angle / diagnosis*
  • Glaucoma, Open-Angle / epidemiology
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Prevalence
  • Proportional Hazards Models
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Risk Factors
  • Sex Factors
  • Taiwan / epidemiology

Grants and funding

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.