Hypertension is the Prominent Risk Factor in Cataract Patients.

Nikolaos Ziakas,Ioanna Mylona,Maria Dermenoudi,Ioannis Tsinopoulos

doi:10.3390/medicina55080430

Nikolaos Ziakas, Ioanna Mylona + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina55080430

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Abstract

Background and objectives: The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of the most prominent cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors in patients undergoing cataract surgery. Materials and Methods: The study included 812 consecutive patients undergoing unilateral, uneventful cataract surgery by means of phacoemulsification, at the 2nd Department of Ophthalmology, Medical School, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, during a calendar year. Patients were assessed for the type of cataract and the presence of three diseases, under pharmacological treatment, that have been reported as risk factors for the development of cataract (arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and dyslipidemia). Results: There was a statistically significant difference between the types of cataract and individual risk factors (p < 0.001). Hypertension was the most frequentrisk factor, ranging from 43.8% in patients with subcapsular cataracts, 24.3% in patients with nuclear cataracts, 28.6% in patients with cortical cataracts, and 27.6% in patients with mixed type cataracts. There was a statistically significant difference as to the total number of risk factors per cataract type (p < 0.001); almost all patients with subcapsular cataracts had at least one risk factor (98.4%) while this percentage was 90.5% for patients with mixed cataracts, 85.7% for patients with cortical cataracts, and78.6% for patients with nuclear cataracts. Conclusions: Diabetes mellitus did not have a large incidence in our sample as a single risk factor, while hypertension did. This finding raises the importance of early detection of hypertension, a cardiovascular condition that typically progresses undetected for a number of years.

Highlights

A cataract is a major cause of blindness in developed and developing countries
This finding raises the importance of early detection of hypertension, a cardiovascular condition that typically progresses undetected for a number of years
The co-existence of multiple cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors has an additive effect on cataract etiopathology, related to the metabolic syndrome, a loosely-defined clinical syndrome characterized by the presence of ≥3 of the following components: body mass index (BMI) ≥25 kg/m2, triglycerides ≥1.7 mM, high density–lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol

Summary

Introduction

A cataract is a major cause of blindness in developed and developing countries. Various cardiovascular and metabolic conditions have been proposed as possible contributors to the etiopathology of the disease, including diabetes mellitus (DM), arterial hypertension, and dyslipidemia, since adequate control of those parameters have been shown to be beneficial to prevent cataract development and decrease its progression rate [1,2]. A study including 3654 elderly Australians revealed no significant association between baseline serum lipids or fibrinogen and incident cataract or cataract surgery [5]. Another large-scale study of 3251 Chinese subjects did not find any link of dyslipidemia to nuclear, cortical, or subcapsular cataract [6]. Both studies were population surveys and not studies of a clinical population. The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of the most prominent cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors in patients undergoing cataract surgery

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