Prevalence and Characteristics of Myopic Degeneration in an Adult Chinese American Population: The Chinese American Eye Study.

PURPOSE: To characterize and provide population-based prevalence estimates of myopic degeneration (MD) among Chinese Americans, the fastest-growing minority population in the United States in the last decade.

DESIGN: Population-based, cross-sectional study.

METHODS: A total of 1523 Chinese-American adults with myopia, aged 50 years and older, residing in the city of Monterey Park, California, underwent an interview and comprehensive eye examination, including subjective and objective refraction and stereoscopic fundus photography. For each participant, the eye with the worse myopic refractive error was included in this analysis. MD was assessed in a masked manner by an expert grader.

RESULTS: The prevalence of any MD was 44.9% among myopic subjects, based on the presence of any degenerative lesion secondary to myopia. The prevalence was 32.2% when MD was defined by a modified version of the Meta-Analysis for Pathologic Myopia. The prevalence of specific lesions included tessellation (31.7%), tilted disc (28.1%), peripapillary atrophy (7.0%), staphyloma (5.7%), diffuse atrophy (6.4%), lacquer cracks (2.6%), intrachoroidal cavitation (2.2%), patchy atrophy (0.9%), and end-stage MD (0.2%). The prevalence of MD was higher among older myopic subjects and among participants with more severe myopia and longer axial length (P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS: These data provide the first population-based estimates of MD in Chinese Americans and indicate that a high proportion of Chinese Americans might be at risk for MD and associated visual complications. Prevalence of MD in this cohort of Chinese Americans was higher than that observed in other East Asian populations and in people of other ethnicities.