Increasing Incidence and Prevalence of Common Retinal Diseases in Retina Practices Across the United States

Abstract

Background and objective: To provide an updated estimate of incidence and prevalence of the foremost retinal diseases in the U.S.

Patients and methods: Retrospective study of the Vestrum Health Database evaluating eyes with diagnoses of wet or dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic macular edema (DME), diabetic retinopathy (DR), branch or central retinal vein occlusion (BRVO; CRVO) from January 2014 to December 2019 across 58 retina practices.

Results: Of the 3,086,791 eyes examined, 490,881 (15.9%) had dry AMD, 294,041 (9.5%) wet AMD, 270,703 (8.8%) DME, 254,690 (8.3%) DR without DME, 73,617 (2.4%) BRVO, and 50,670 (1.6%) CRVO. Dry AMD had the highest incidence. These diseases comprised 61.0% of total prevalence and 54.3% of incidence among patients at the retina practices analyzed.

Conclusions: Based on a diverse database, these diseases comprised the majority of U.S. retina practice cases, with increasing annual incidences. AMD is the most common diagnosis, then diabetic eye disease. [Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina. 2021;52:29-36.].