Prevalence of Age-related Maculopathy in the Adult Population in China: The Beijing Eye tudy Original Reearch Article

Objective To evaluate the prevalence of age-related maculopathy (ARM) in adult Chinee living in rural or urban region of mainland China. Deign Population-baed prevalence tudy. Method The tudy included 4439 ubject (aged 40 or more year) out of 5324 ubject invited to participate (repone rate 83.4%). It wa held in rural and urban region of Greater Beijing. The participant underwent a detailed ophthalmic examination including fundu photography. All fundu photograph were graded by the Wiconin Age-Related Maculopathy Grading ytem. Reult Fundu photograph were available for 4376 (98.6%) ubject. Early ARM wa preent in 122 (1.4%) of 8655 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.16% to 1.66%) eye or 63 (1.4%) of 4376 (95% CI 1.09% to 1.79%) ubject, late ARM in 12 (0.14%) of 8655 (95% CI 0.06% to 0.22%) eye or even (0.2%) of 4376 (95% CI 0.04% to 0.28%) ubject, and exudative ARM a part of late ARM in even (0.1%) of 8655 (95% CI 0.02% to 0.14%) eye or ix (0.1%) of 4376 (95% CI 0.03% to 0.25%) ubject. The prevalence of early ARM, late ARM, and exudative ARM, repectively, increaed from 0.61%, 0.07%, and 0.07% in the 40-to-44-year age group, to 1.66%, 0.26%, and 0.26% in the 55-to-59-year group, and to 2.99%, 0.90%, and 0.60% in the group aged 75 year and older. ARM wa cauative for viual impairment (bet-corrected viual acuity in the better eye, <20/60 and ≥20/400) or blindne (viual acuity <20/400) in one ubject (0.023%). Concluion Viual impairment due to ARM wa relatively uncommon in the adult Chinee population in rural and urban region.