Macular, choroidal and disc associations across women's reproductive life stages: a scoping review from menarche to post-menopause.

Oestrogen and progesterone fluctuate cyclically in women throughout their adult lives. Although these hormones cross the blood-retinal barrier and bind to intraocular receptors, their effects remain unclear. We present the first review to date on associations between posterior pole structures-specifically the macula, choroid, and optic disc-and both the menstrual cycle and post-menopausal period, utilising multimodal imaging techniques in healthy adult non-pregnant women.

Machine learning derived retinal pigment score from ophthalmic imaging shows ethnicity is not biology.

Few metrics exist to describe phenotypic diversity within ophthalmic imaging datasets, with researchers often using ethnicity as a surrogate marker for biological variability. We derived a continuous, measured metric, the retinal pigment score (RPS), that quantifies the degree of pigmentation from a colour fundus photograph of the eye. RPS was validated using two large epidemiological studies with demographic and genetic data (UK Biobank and EPIC-Norfolk Study) and reproduced in a Tanzanian, an Australian, and a Chinese dataset.

Bilateral anterior lens capsule rupture in Alport syndrome: case series and literature review.

We present 3 cases of bilateral anterior lens capsule rupture, all leading to a subsequent diagnosis of Alport syndrome. Clinicians should be alert to the ocular and systemic features of Alport syndrome, especially when presented with a spontaneous rupture of the anterior lens capsule in young males. Ophthalmologists are often the first contact for patients with Alport syndrome, and a sound knowledge of the associated features will enable timely referral to other members of a multidisciplinary team required to treat such patients.

Association of Ambient Air Pollution Exposure With Incident Glaucoma: 12-Year Evidence From the UK Biobank Cohort.

Purpose: Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Despite growing concerns about air quality and its impact on ocular health, there remains a knowledge gap regarding the long-term association between air pollution and glaucoma risk. This study investigates the relationship between exposure to ambient air pollution and incidence of glaucoma.

Screening Strategies and Methodologies.

Prcis: While glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible vision loss, it presents technical challenges in the design and implementation of screening. New technologies such as PRS and AI offer potential improvements in our ability to identify people at high risk of sight loss from glaucoma and may improve the viability of screening for this important disease.

Purpose: To review the current evidence and concepts around screening for glaucoma.

Association between polygenic risk for schizophrenia and retinal morphology: A cross-sectional analysis of the United Kingdom Biobank.

We examined the relationship between genetic risk for schizophrenia (SZ), using polygenic risk scores (PRSs), and retinal morphological alterations. Retinal structural and vascular indices derived from optical coherence tomography (OCT) and color fundus photography (CFP) and PRSs for SZ were analyzed in N = 35,024 individuals from the prospective cohort study, United Kingdom Biobank (UKB). Results indicated that macular ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer (mGC-IPL) thickness was significantly inversely related to PRS for SZ, and this relationship was strongest within higher PRS quintiles and independent of potential confounders and age.

The Association of Urinary Sodium Excretion with Glaucoma and Related Traits in a Large United Kingdom Population.

Purpose: Excessive dietary sodium intake has known adverse effects on intravascular fluid volume and systemic blood pressure, which may influence intraocular pressure (IOP) and glaucoma risk. This study aimed to assess the association of urinary sodium excretion, a biomarker of dietary intake, with glaucoma and related traits, and determine whether this relationship is modified by genetic susceptibility to disease.

Design: Cross-sectional observational and gene-environment interaction analyses in the population-based UK Biobank study.

Structural correlations between brain magnetic resonance image-derived phenotypes and retinal neuroanatomy.

Background And Purpose: The eye is a well-established model of brain structure and function, yet region-specific structural correlations between the retina and the brain remain underexplored. Therefore, we aim to explore and describe the relationships between the retinal layer thicknesses and brain magnetic resonance image (MRI)-derived phenotypes in UK Biobank.

Methods: Participants with both quality-controlled optical coherence tomography (OCT) and brain MRI were included in this study.

Periodontitis and Outer Retinal Thickness: a Cross-Sectional Analysis of the United Kingdom Biobank Cohort.

Purpose: Periodontitis, a ubiquitous severe gum disease affecting the teeth and surrounding alveolar bone, can heighten systemic inflammation. We investigated the association between very severe periodontitis and early biomarkers of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), in individuals with no eye disease.

Design: Cross-sectional analysis of the prospective community-based cohort United Kingdom (UK) Biobank.

Smoking, Corneal Biomechanics, and Glaucoma: Results From Two Large Population-Based Cohorts.

Purpose: Smoking may influence measured IOP through an effect on corneal biomechanics, but it is unclear whether this factor translates into an increased risk for glaucoma. This study aimed to examine the association of cigarette smoking with corneal biomechanical properties and glaucoma-related traits, and to probe potential causal effects using Mendelian randomization (MR).

Methods: Cross-sectional analyses within the UK Biobank (UKB) and Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) cohorts.

Genomics enabling personalised glaucoma care.

Glaucoma is a leading cause of visual impairment and a significant public health concern, but despite ongoing advances in our understanding of the disease, several important clinical challenges remain. With the number of affected people projected to increase substantially over coming decades, novel approaches to screening, risk stratification, therapy and glaucoma research are essential to deal with this expanding burden in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Genomics may hold the key to unlocking further biological insights and enabling precision medicine, in which glaucoma care is tailored to the individual patient, based on their unique profile for disease.

Calcium Channel Blocker Use and Associated Glaucoma and Related Traits Among UK Biobank Participants.

Importance: Calcium channel blocker (CCB) use has been associated with an increased risk of glaucoma in exploratory studies.

Objective: To examine the association of systemic CCB use with glaucoma and related traits among UK Biobank participants.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This population-based cross-sectional study included UK Biobank participants with complete data (2006-2010) for analysis of glaucoma status, intraocular pressure (IOP), and optical coherence tomography (OCT)-derived inner retinal layer thicknesses.

Ethnicity is not biology: retinal pigment score to evaluate biological variability from ophthalmic imaging using machine learning.

Background: Few metrics exist to describe phenotypic diversity within ophthalmic imaging datasets, with researchers often using ethnicity as an inappropriate marker for biological variability.

Methods: We derived a continuous, measured metric, the retinal pigment score (RPS), that quantifies the degree of pigmentation from a colour fundus photograph of the eye. RPS was validated using two large epidemiological studies with demographic and genetic data (UK Biobank and EPIC-Norfolk Study).

Towards modifying the genetic predisposition for glaucoma: An overview of the contribution and interaction of genetic and environmental factors.

Glaucoma, the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide, is a complex human disease, with both genetic and environmental determinants. The availability of large-scale, population-based cohorts and biobanks, combining genotyping and detailed phenotyping, has greatly accelerated research into the aetiology of glaucoma in recent years. Hypothesis-free genome-wide association studies have furthered our understanding of the complex genetic architecture underpinning the disease, while epidemiological studies have provided advances in the identification and characterisation of environmental risk factors.

The Association of Physical Activity with Glaucoma and Related Traits in the UK Biobank.

Purpose: To examine the association of physical activity (PA) with glaucoma and related traits, to assess whether genetic predisposition to glaucoma modified these associations, and to probe causal relationships using Mendelian randomization (MR).

Design: Cross-sectional observational and gene-environment interaction analyses in the UK Biobank. Two-sample MR experiments using summary statistics from large genetic consortia.

Association of Systemic Medication Use with Glaucoma and Intraocular Pressure: The European Eye Epidemiology Consortium.

Purpose: To investigate the association of commonly used systemic medications with glaucoma and intraocular pressure (IOP) in the European population.

Design: Meta-analysis of 11 population-based cohort studies of the European Eye Epidemiology Consortium.

Participants: The glaucoma analyses included 143 240 participants and the IOP analyses included 47 177 participants.

Association Between Retinal Features From Multimodal Imaging and Schizophrenia.

Importance: The potential association of schizophrenia with distinct retinal changes is of clinical interest but has been challenging to investigate because of a lack of sufficiently large and detailed cohorts.

Objective: To investigate the association between retinal biomarkers from multimodal imaging (oculomics) and schizophrenia in a large real-world population.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cross-sectional analysis used data from a retrospective cohort of 154 830 patients 40 years and older from the AlzEye study, which linked ophthalmic data with hospital admission data across England.

Genetic Associations Between Smoking- and Glaucoma-Related Traits.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe the genetic relationship between smoking and glaucoma.

Methods: We used summary-level genetic data for smoking initiation, smoking intensity (cigarettes per day [CPD]), intraocular pressure (IOP), vertical cup-disc ratio, and open-angle glaucoma (OAG) to estimate global genetic correlations (rg) and perform two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) experiments that explored relations between traits. Finally, we examined associations between smoking genetic risk scores (GRS) and smoking traits with measured IOP and OAG in Rotterdam Study participants.

Incidence and epidemiology of conjunctival squamous cell carcinoma in relation to the HIV epidemic in South Africa: a 25-year analysis of the National Cancer Registry (1994-2018).

Aims: To describe the incidence and epidemiology of conjunctival squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) in South Africa over a 25-year period (1994-2018), with particular reference to the HIV epidemic.

Methods: Incident cases of histologically diagnosed CSCC were identified from the pathology-based South African National Cancer Registry. Crude and direct age-standardised incidence rates (ASIRs) per 100 000 persons (Segi World Standard Population) were calculated using national population statistics and compared by age, sex and ethnicity.

UK Biobank retinal imaging grading: methodology, baseline characteristics and findings for common ocular diseases.

Background/objectives: This study aims to describe the grading methods and baseline characteristics for UK Biobank (UKBB) participants who underwent retinal imaging in 2009-2010, and to characterise individuals with retinal features suggestive of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), glaucoma and retinopathy.

Methods: Non-mydriatic colour fundus photographs and macular optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans were manually graded by Central Administrative Research Facility certified graders and quality assured by clinicians of the Network of Ophthalmic Reading Centres UK. Captured retinal features included those associated with AMD (≥1 drusen, pigmentary changes, geographic atrophy or exudative AMD; either imaging modality), glaucoma (≥0.

Prevalence of Diabetic Retinopathy in Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Topic: This systematic review and meta-analysis summarizes evidence relating to the prevalence of diabetic retinopathy (DR) among Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Clinical Relevance: Indigenous Australians suffer disproportionately from diabetes-related complications. Exploring ethnic variation in disease is important for equitable distribution of resources and may lead to identification of ethnic-specific modifiable risk factors.

The Association of Female Reproductive Factors with Glaucoma and Related Traits: A Systematic Review.

Topic: This systematic review summarizes evidence for associations between female reproductive factors (age at menarche, parity, oral contraceptive [OC] use, age at menopause, and postmenopausal hormone [PMH] use) and intraocular pressure (IOP) or open-angle glaucoma (OAG).

Clinical Relevance: Understanding the associations between female reproductive factors and glaucoma may shed light on the disease pathogenesis and aid clinical prediction and personalized treatment strategies. Importantly, some factors are modifiable, which may lead to new therapies.