Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2017 Sep 25;7(9):e014644.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2016-014644.

Prevalence and risk factors of epiretinal membranes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of population-based studies

Wei Xiao  1 , Xiaoyun Chen  1 , William Yan  2 , Zhuoting Zhu  1 , Mingguang He  1   2
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Prevalence and risk factors of epiretinal membranes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of population-based studies

Wei Xiao et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objective: This study was to aggregate the prevalence and risks of epiretinal membranes (ERMs) and determine the possible causes of the varied estimates.

Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Data sources: The search strategy was designed prospectively. We searched PubMed, Embase and Web of Science databases from inception to July 2016. Reference lists of the included literatures were reviewed as well.

Study selection: Surveys published in English language from any population were included if they had a population-based design and reported the prevalence of ERM from retinal photography with or without optical coherence tomography. Eligibility and quality evaluation was conducted independently by two investigators.

Data extraction: The literature search generated 2144 records, and 13 population-based studies comprising 49 697 subjects were finally included. The prevalence of ERM and the ORs of potential risk factors (age, sex, myopia, hypertension and so on) were extracted.

Results: The pooled age-standardised prevalence estimates of earlier ERM (cellophane macular reflex (CMR)), advanced ERM (preretinal macular fibrosis (PMF)) and any ERM were 6.5% (95% CI 4.2% to 8.9%), 2.6% (95% CI 1.8% to 3.4%) and 9.1% (95% CI 6.0% to 12.2%), respectively. In the subgroup analysis, race and photography modality contributed to the variation in the prevalence estimates of PMF, while the WHO regions and image reading methods were associated with the varied prevalence of CMR and any ERM. Meta-analysis showed that only greater age and female significantly conferred a higher risk of ERMs.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that ERMs are relatively common among aged population. Race, image taking and reading methodology may play important roles in influencing the large variability of ERM prevalence estimates.

Keywords: epiretinal membranes; meta-analysis; population-based; prevalence; risk factors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of studies identified, included and excluded. ERM, epiretinal membrane.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Bu SC, Kuijer R, Li XR, et al. Idiopathic epiretinal membrane. Retina 2014;34:2317–35. 10.1097/IAE.0000000000000349 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Klein R, Klein BE, Wang Q, et al. The epidemiology of epiretinal membranes. Trans Am Ophthalmol Soc 1994;92:403–25. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Koh V, Cheung CY, Wong WL, et al. Prevalence and risk factors of epiretinal membrane in Asian Indians. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 2012;53:1018–22. 10.1167/iovs.11-8557 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cheung N, Tan SP, Lee SY, et al. Prevalence and risk factors for epiretinal membrane: the Singapore Epidemiology of Eye Disease study. Br J Ophthalmol 2016:bjophthalmol-2016-308563 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2016-308563 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kawasaki R, Wang JJ, Sato H, et al. Prevalence and associations of epiretinal membranes in an adult Japanese population: the Funagata study. Eye 2009;23:1045–51. 10.1038/eye.2008.238 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources