Association between neovascular age-related macular degeneration and dementia: a population-based case-control study in Taiwan.
BACKGROUND
Most available studies focusing on the association between neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and dementia have conflicting results. This study aimed to investigate the association between previously diagnosed AMD and dementia using a population-based dataset in Taiwan.


METHODS
Data for this case-control study were retrospectively collected from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. We identified 13,402 subjects who had a diagnosis of dementia as cases, and 40,206 subjects without dementia as controls. A conditional logistic regression was used to examine the association of dementia with previously diagnosed neovascular AMD.


RESULTS
We found that of the study sample of 53,608 subjects, 1.01% had previously diagnosed neovascular AMD, 1.35% and 0.90% for cases and the controls, respectively (p<0.001). The conditional logistic regression analysis suggested that the odds ratio of prior neovascular AMD for cases was 1.37 (95% confidence interval: 1.14~1.65) compared to the controls after adjusting for subjects' age, monthly income, geographic location, urbanization level, and hyperlipidemia, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, ischemic heart disease, and whether or not a subjects underwent cataract surgery prior to index date than controls.


CONCLUSIONS
Dementia subjects were associated with a higher proportion of prior neovascular AMD than were the controls.
Department of Ophthalmology, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; Sleep Research Center, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
Shiu-Dong
SD
Chung
Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
Cha-Ze
CZ
Lee
Graduate Institute of Life Science, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
Li-Ting
LT
Kao
Sleep Research Center, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; School of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Herng-Ching
HC
Lin
School of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan; Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Cathay General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
Ming-Chieh
MC
Tsai
Department of Neurology, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Jau-Jiuan
JJ
Sheu
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016208:Databases, Factual; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008268:Macular Degeneration / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012042:Registries; D015861:Retinal Neovascularization / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology