Elsevier

American Journal of Ophthalmology

Volume 217, September 2020, Pages 74-80
American Journal of Ophthalmology

Original Article
Ten-Year Incidence of Cataract Surgery in Urban Southern China: The Liwan Eye Study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajo.2020.03.034Get rights and content

Purpose

We sought to estimate the 10-year incidence of cataract surgery and its associated factors in an adult urban Chinese population.

Design

Population-based cohort study.

Methods

The Liwan Eye Study is a population-based study initiated in 2003 with 1405 eligible participants. All baseline participants were invited to return for a 10-year follow-up examination with the same protocol. Having incident cataract surgery was defined as participants with native crystalline lens at baseline who underwent cataract surgery performed in either eye during the 10-year follow-up period. A detailed questionnaire was administrated to collect information regarding income, education, and medical history of hypertension and diabetes at baseline examination.

Results

Seven hundred ninety-one (86.2%) of 918 eligible survivors attended the 10-year follow-up examination, and 778 participants without previous binocular cataract surgery were eligible for analysis. The overall 10-year incidence of any cataract surgery was 73 of 778 patients (9.4% [95% confidence interval 7.4%-11.7%). The incident cataract surgery increased with age, and increased from 1.5% among participants 50 to 54 years of age, to 23.2% for those ≥75 years of age (P < .001); the same trends were also observed for incident unilateral (P < .001) and bilateral surgery (P < .001). In the multivariate logistic regression model, income >¥1000 renminbi (approximately $141.30) (odds ratio [OR] 0.2, P = .023), education level (OR 0.1, P < .001), and presence of diabetes (OR 3.9, P = .038) had a significant positive effect on cataract surgery incidence.

Conclusions

Approximately 1 in 10 participants ≥50 years of age underwent cataract surgery over 10 years. The incidence was lower than that reported in developed countries, suggesting a substantial unmet demand even in a major urban city in China.

Section snippets

Study Population

The Liwan Eye Study is a population-based cohort study carried out in an urban district of Guangzhou, Southern China. Detailed information of the baseline methodology of the Liwan Eye Study has been described elsewhere.22 In brief, 1405 subjects ≥50 years of age who resided in the selected district for >6 months were recruited and completed the eye examinations in 2003. With the exception of those who died, moved away from the study area, or were unable to be reached, all participants in the

Results

Among the 1405 participants who participated in the baseline examination, 791 (86.2%) of the 918 eligible survivors attended the 10-year follow-up visit. Of the 294 participants (27.1% of survivors) who did not attend the 10-year follow-up examination, 167 (56.8%) had moved from the study area and 127 (43.2%) declined participation. The basic characteristics of participants and nonparticipants have been reported elsewhere.23 In brief, the 791 participants were younger, more likely to be male,

Discussion

The incident rate of cataract surgery is constantly changing with the rapid development of the economy and population aging. Therefore, updated data on the incidence of cataract surgery may play an important role in effective policy formulation and resource allocation through an improved knowledge of the distribution and demand for cataract surgery and factors associated with uptake. This study describes the 10-year incidence and factors associated with cataract surgery in an older adult

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Lanhua Wang: Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Rui Gong: Formal analysis, Writing - original draft. Stuart Keel: Writing - review & editing. Zhuoting Zhu: Writing - review & editing. Mingguang He: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition.

References (29)

Cited by (5)

Supplemental Material available at AJO.com.

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