Markedly decreasing incidence of cause-specific blindness in Saxony (Eastern Germany)
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Markedly decreasing incidence of cause-specific blindness in Saxony (Eastern Germany) Heiner Claessen 1,2,3 Andrea Icks 1,2,3
&
Tatjana Kvitkina 1,2,3 & Maria Narres 1,2,3 & Christoph Trautner 4 & Bernd Bertram 5 &
Received: 20 April 2020 / Revised: 24 July 2020 / Accepted: 6 August 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Purpose To analyze the recent time trend in Saxony. Methods Data were based on administrative files in Saxony (Eastern Germany) to assess recipients of blindness allowance newly registered between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2017. We estimated age–sex standardized incidence of all-cause and cause-specific blindness and used Poisson regression to examine age- and sex-adjusted time trends. Results We identified 5114 new cases of blindness (63.3% female, 59.9% ≥ 80 years). We observed a markedly decrease in incidence of blindness: all-causes 2009: 15.7 per 100,000 person years [95% confidence interval: 14.6–17.0]; 2017: 8.9 [8.1– 9.8]; age-related macular degeneration 2009: 6.9 [6.1–7.7], 2017: 3.8 [3.3–4.3]; glaucoma 2009: 2.6 [2.2–3.1], 2017: 1.8 [1.4– 2.2]; diabetic retinopathy 2009: 1.5 [1.2–1.9], 2017: 0.7 [0.5–1.0]; myopia 2009: 0.7 [0.5–1.1], 2017: 0.4 [0.2–0.5]; optic atrophy 2009: 0.9 [0.6–1.2], 2017: 0.5 [0.3–0.7]; and cataract 2009: 0.5 [0.3–0.8], 2017: 0.1 [0.1–0.3]. The annual reduction was between 5 (glaucoma, relative risk 0.95 [0.92–0.98]) and 16% (cataract, relative risk 0.84 [0.78–0.91]). Conclusion The age- and sex-standardized incidence of blindness decreased among all common causes of blindness in Saxony in the last decade. Keywords Blindness . Incidence . Germany . Cause-specific blindness . Cause of blindness . Time trend
Introduction Blindness and visual impairment are a public health problem with a significant impact on healthcare, quality of life, and a
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-020-04885-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Heiner Claessen [email protected] 1
Institute for Health Services Research and Health Economics, German Diabetes Centre, Düsseldorf, Germany
2
Institute for Health Services Research and Health Economics, Centre for Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
3
German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), Munich-Neuherberg, Germany
4
Medicine Science Consulting, Berlin, Germany
5
Ophthalmologic Office, Aachen, Germany
high economic burden [1]. In 2015, it was estimated that about 36 million people worldwide were blind (visual acuity worse than 3/60) [2]. According to various estimations, approximately 80,000 to 500,000 persons in Germany are blind (defined as best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) ≤ 0.02 in the better eye or visual field ≤ 5 degrees in both eyes) and 215,000 to one million have a visual impairment (visual acuity < 0.05) [3]. As life expectancy increases, the number of people with agerelated eye dise
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