Prevalence of full-thickness macular holes in urban and rural adult Chinese: the Beijing Eye Study.
OBJECTIVE
To determine the prevalence of full-thickness macular holes in the elderly Chinese population.


METHODS
Population-based, cross-sectional cohort study.


METHODS
The Beijing Eye Study included 4439 subjects out of 5324 subjects invited to participate (response rate 83.4%) aged 40 years or older. The present investigation consisted of 8653 (97.9%) eyes of 4346 subjects for whom readable fundus photographs were available.


RESULTS
Full-thickness macular holes were found in eight (0.092%) eyes of seven (0.16%) patients (six women). Prevalence was 0.09 +/- 3.04% [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.03, 0.16%].


CONCLUSIONS
Full-thickness macular holes may be present in approximately 1.6 out of 1000 elderly Chinese in Northern China. Calculated for the entire population in China, the figure would be approximately 750,000 patients with unilateral full-thickness macular holes [n = 650,000 (95% CI: 217,000 to 1,156,000)] or bilateral full-thickness macular holes [n = 100,000 (95% CI: 33,000 to 178,000)].
Wang
Shuang
S
Beijing Institute of Ophthalmology, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital University of Medical Science, Beijing, China.
Xu
Liang
L
Jonas
Jost B
JB
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010781:Photography; D015995:Prevalence; D012167:Retinal Perforations / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*