Purpose: To investigate the prevalence of early age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI).
Methods: Enrolled in the study were 262 acute MI patients (MI group), aged 40-64 years, as well as 1,155 non-MI persons, aged 40-64 years, from a random sample (reference group) of the Kaunas population.
Results: The prevalence of early AMD in the random sample was 7.3%, while in MI patients, the prevalence was 54.5% (P < 0.001). For all age groups, the prevalence of early AMD was significantly (P < 0.005) higher in MI patients than in reference-group persons. In the reference group, the prevalence of early AMD increased significantly with age, whereas no such trend was observed in the MI group. At the 45- to 54-year-olds, the prevalence was significantly higher in males than in females (9.9% vs. 3.7%; P < 0.05) in the reference group, while overall, the prevalence of early AMD in the males and females of the much larger reference group was 8.6% versus 6.2%, respectively (P > 0.05). It increased more with age for females (3.7% and 10.8% at the age 45-54 and 55-64 years, P < 0.05, respectively) while in males, frequency of AMD did not differ significantly between latter age groups (9.9% vs. 11.6%; P > 0.05).
Conclusions: We conclude that the prevalence of early AMD is significantly higher in patients with MI than in a random sample of the population.