Original ArticlePrevalence of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in 4 Racial/Ethnic Groups in the Multi-ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis
Section snippets
Subjects and Study Design
The MESA is a 10-year longitudinal study supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute with the goals of identifying risk factors for subclinical atherosclerosis, for quantitative progression of subclinical atherosclerosis, and for transition from subclinical disease to clinically apparent events.15 The MESA cohort includes 6814 men and women 45 to 84 years old at baseline (July 2000 to July 2002) who were recruited from 6 field centers: Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois;
Participants
Of the 6814 participants seen at baseline, 6176 participated in the second study visit when retinal images were acquired. Persons who participated were more likely at baseline to be younger (62.4 vs. 65.1 years, P<0.001), to be male (47.7% vs. 41.9%, P = 0.005), not to be black (27.2% vs. 34.6%) or Hispanic (21.6% vs. 25.1%, P<0.001), and not to have a history of hypertension (43.6% vs. 51.1%, P<0.001) or diabetes (14.4% vs. 22.6%, P<0.001) than nonparticipants at the second study visit.
Of the
Discussion
The MESA provided a unique opportunity to examine the frequency of any AMD in 4 racial/ethnic groups living in 6 U.S. communities. Age-related macular degeneration was measured by grading of fundus digital images in a masked fashion by means of a standard classification system.
The overall prevalence of any AMD varied from 2.4% in blacks, 4.2% in Hispanics, 4.6% in Chinese, to 5.4% in whites. The lower frequency in blacks versus whites was similar to data from earlier studies.7, 11 Unexpectedly,
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Manuscript no. 2005-445.
This study was supported by National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland (grant no.: HL69979-03 [RK, TYW]), and Research to Prevent Blindness, New York, New York (Senior Scientific Investigator Award [RK, BEKK]).
The authors do not have any conflicts of interest related to the article.
A full list of participating Multi-ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis investigators and institutions can be found at http://www.mesa-nhlbi.org (under “MESA P&P Policy/Acknowledgements”).