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. 2022 Jul 18:10:937246.
doi: 10.3389/fped.2022.937246. eCollection 2022.

Distribution of pediatric keratoconus by different age and gender groups

Kaili Yang  1 , Yuwei Gu  1 , Liyan Xu  1 , Qi Fan  1 , Meng Zhu  1 , Qing Wang  1 , Shanshan Yin  1 , Bo Zhang  1 , Chenjiu Pang  1 , Shengwei Ren  1
Affiliations

Distribution of pediatric keratoconus by different age and gender groups

Kaili Yang et al. Front Pediatr. .

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the distribution of pediatric keratoconus patients and the disease severity based on different age and gender groups in China.

Materials and methods: A total of 446 keratoconus eyes in 266 pediatric patients from January 2019 to January 2022 were included in the cross-sectional study. The clinical findings and severity of keratoconus were recorded and Kruskal-Wallis test, chi-squared test, and Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel (CMH) test were used to compare the parameters between different gender and age groups.

Results: The male/female ratio was 353/93 (3.8:1), and the median age was 16 years (range: 6-17 years). Male patients were statistically younger than female patients (P = 0.041). The male/female ratio decreased with age (P for trend = 0.011). The distribution of the topographic keratoconus classification (TKC) stage was significantly different between gender and age groups (all P < 0.05). Male patients had a higher ratio of advanced keratoconus eyes (TKC ≥ 3) than female patients (P < 0.001), and CMH analysis indicated that being a male was a risk factor for advanced keratoconus after controlling for age (odds ratio: 2.581, P < 0.001).

Conclusion: Male keratoconus patients were younger, with a higher ratio of advanced keratoconus than female patients in the Chinese pediatric patients evaluated. Multicenter studies with larger sample sizes are necessary in the future.

Keywords: China; age distribution; gender distribution; keratoconus severity; pediatric keratoconus.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Flow diagram of study subjects.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Gender distribution of pediatric KC patients in different age groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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