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Age-Related Cataract in the Tibet Eye Study
Tian-Sheng Hu, MD;
Qu Zhen, MD;
Robert D. Sperduto, MD;
Jia-Liang Zhao, MD;
Roy C. Milton, PhD;
Akira Nakajima, MD;
the Tibet Eye Study Group
Arch Ophthalmol. 1989;107(5):666-669.
Abstract
• The Tibet Eye Study was designed to estimate the prevalence of age-related cataract in Duilong-Deqing County, west of Lhasa, China (altitude, 4000 m). Previous reports have suggested an unusually high prevalence of age-related cataract in Tibet. A two-stage probability sample of persons aged 20 years or older from the 35 townships of the county targeted 2884 persons for inclusion in the study; 2665 (92.4%) were examined. Age-related cataract was diagnosed when (1) visual acuity was worse than 6/12 (20/40) because of nuclear or cortical (including posterior subcapsular) opacities, or (2) aphakia associated with a history of age-related cataract was present in either eye. The prevalence of age-related cataract among persons aged 20 to 39 years was 0.2%; among persons 40 years old or older, the prevalence was 11.8%. Cortical cataracts were by far the most common type of cataract diagnosed. Age- and sexadjusted prevalence in Tibet was 60% higher than the prevalence in a similar, previously conducted study of 6951 person in Shunyi County, northeast of Beijing (altitude, 50 m). A second, independent slit-lamp classification of lens status was conducted in the Tibet Eye Study using standard photographs previously described. Age-specific cataract prevalence was similar with the two examination techniques. Results from the Tibet Eye Study support previous suggestions of a high prevalence of age-related cataract in Tibet.
Author Affiliations
From Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing, China (Drs Hu and Zhao); People's Hospital of Tibet, Lhasa, China (Dr Zhen); the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md (Drs Sperduto and Milton); and Juntendo University Medical School, World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for the Prevention of Blindness, Tokyo (Dr Nakajima). A complete list of participants in the Tibet Eye Study appears at the end of this article.
Footnotes
Accepted for publication Nov 12, 1988.
Reprint requests to Peking Union Medical College Hospital, 1, Shuai Fu Yuan, Beijing 100730, The People's Republic of China (Dr Hu), or National Eye Institute, NIH, Bldg 31, Room 6A/24, Bethesda, MD 20892 (Dr Sperduto).
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