TUESDAY, Oct. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Elevated baseline levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein may predict the development of both early and late incident aging macula disorder (AMD), according to a report published in the October issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.
Sharmila S. Boekhoorn, M.D., Ph.D., of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and colleagues followed 4,914 subjects for a mean of 7.7 years, during which they identified 561 cases of early and 97 cases of late incident AMD.
After adjusting for age and sex, the researchers found that each standard deviation increase in high-sensitivity C-reactive protein increased the risk of early and late incident AMD (hazard ratios 1.11 and 1.28, respectively). They also found that subjects in the upper quartile for C-reactive protein had the highest risk of early AMD (HR, 1.33) and that subjects in all the upper quartiles had a higher risk of late incident AMD.
"This supports the theory that inflammation is a mechanism involved in the pathogenesis of AMD in the general population," the authors state.
Abstract
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