Impact of Retinopathy and Systemic Vascular Comorbidities on All-Cause Mortality

Aims/hypothesis: To investigate the joint effects of retinopathy and systemic vascular comorbidities on mortality. Methods: This study included 5703 participants (>= 40 years old) from the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study grading scale was used to evaluate the retinopathy status. Systemic vascular comorbidities included diabetes mellitus (DM), high blood pressure (HBP), chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Time to death was calculated as the time from baseline to either the date of death or censoring (December 31st, 2015), whichever came first. Risks of mortality were estimated using Cox proportional hazards models. Results: After adjusting for confounders, the presence of retinopathy predicted higher all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 1.40; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.09-1.81). The all-cause mortality among participants with both retinopathy and systemic vascular comorbidities including DM (HR, 1.63; 95% CI, 1.06-2.50), HBP (HR, 1.46; 95% CI, 1.03-2.08), CKD (HR, 1.71; 95% CI, 1.24-2.35) and CVD (HR, 1.88; 95% CI, 1.19-2.96) was significantly higher than that among those without either condition. Conclusions/interpretation: In this prospective study, individuals with retinopathy had increased all-cause mortality. The joint effects of retinopathy and major systemic vascular comorbidities increased the all-cause mortality further, suggesting that more extensive vascular risk factor assessment and management are needed to detect the burden of vascular pathologies and improve long-term survival in individuals with retinopathy.

Automated summary

This study found that individuals with retinopathy have an increased all-cause mortality. The joint effects of retinopathy and major systemic vascular comorbidities further increased the all-cause mortality, indicating the need for more extensive vascular risk factor assessment and management to detect the burden of vascular pathologies and improve long-term survival in individuals with retinopathy.