Vascular outcome in men with asymptomatic retinal cholesterol emboli. A cohort study.
OBJECTIVE: To determine whether asymptomatic retinal cholesterol embolism is a risk factor for vascular events. DESIGN: Cohort study with retrospectively selected controls. SETTING: A Veterans Affairs medical center. PATIENTS: 70 consecutive patients with asymptomatic retinal cholesterol emboli on dilated ocular examination in an eye clinic and 70 controls without retinal emboli. Controls were matched to patients for sex; age; prevalence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and ischemic heart disease; serum cholesterol level; and smoking history. MEASUREMENTS: Stroke, myocardial infarction, and death. RESULTS: During a mean follow-up of 3.4 years, stroke occurred at an annual rate of 8.5% among patients and 0.8% among controls (adjusted relative risk, 9.9; 95% CI, 2.3 to 43.1; P = 0.002). Nineteen strokes occurred, 17 in patients and 2 in controls; all were nonfatal cerebral infarctions. Twelve of the 17 that occurred in patients were in a carotid artery territory ipsilateral to the qualifying retinal cholesterol embolus and 5 were in another vascular territory. Ocular infarction or hemorrhagic stroke did not occur. Nonfatal myocardial infarction or vascular death occurred at an annual rate of 7.7% among patients and 4.9% among controls (adjusted relative risk, 1.4; 95% CI, 0.7 to 2.9; P = 0.39). CONCLUSION: Asymptomatic retinal cholesterol embolism is an important risk factor for cerebral infarction independent of commonly recognized vascular risk factors.[1]References
- Vascular outcome in men with asymptomatic retinal cholesterol emboli. A cohort study. Bruno, A., Jones, W.L., Austin, J.K., Carter, S., Qualls, C. Ann. Intern. Med. (1995) [Pubmed]
Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenesOpen Access LicencePrivacy PolicyTerms of Useapsburg