ArticleBMC public health2024
Association of retinal microvascular abnormalities with all-cause and specific-cause mortality among U.S. adults.
Article in BMC public health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Explainable retinal deep learning for cardiovascular risk stratification: a multiple modality analysis framework with vascular-centric interpretability and robustness.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2026Article
- Deep learning-based retinal risk stratification for 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular mortality in patients with hypertension and diabetes: a retrospective cohort study.Clinical hypertension · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundRetinal microvascular abnormalities (RMA) reflect cumulative microvascular damage from systemic diseases and aging. However, little is known about the association between RMA and long-term survival outcomes. This study aimed to examine the relationships between RMA and the risk of all-cause and specific-cause mortality among U.S. adults.
methodsIndividuals aged ≥ 40 years were included from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2005-2008. RMA and its subtypes, including retinopathy, arteriovenous nicking (AVN), focal arteriolar narrowing (FAN) and Hollenhorst plaque (HP), were manually graded from retinal photographs. Associations between RMA and the risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality were examined with Cox regression analysis.
resultsThis cohort study of 5775 adults included 2881 women (weighted proportion, 52.6%) and 2894 men (weighted, 47.4%), with a weighted mean (SE) age of 56.6 (0.4) years. RMA were present in 1251 participants (weighted, 17.9%), of whom 710 (weighted, 9.8%) had retinopathy, 635 (weighted, 9.3%) had AVN, 64 (weighted, 1.0%) had FAN, and 21 (weighted, 0.3%) had HP. During a median of 12.2 years (range, 0.1-15.0 years) of follow-up, 1488 deaths occurred, including 452 associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD), 341 associated with cancer, and 695 associated with other causes. After adjusting confounding factors, the presence of any RMA and retinopathy at baseline was associated with higher risk of all-cause mortality (HR, 1.26; 95%CI, 1.07-1.47; HR, 1.36; 95%CI, 1.09-1.71, respectively), CVD mortality (HR, 1.36; 95%CI, 1.06-1.73; HR, 1.53; 95%CI, 1.04-2.26, respectively) and other-cause mortality (HR, 1.33; 95%CI, 1.06-1.67; HR, 1.55; 95%CI, 1.20-2.01, respectively). Additionally, FAN was significantly associated with an increased risk of other-cause mortality (HR, 2.06; 95%CI, 1.16-3.65). Although AVN was not associated with mortality in the whole population, it was significantly related to higher risks of all-cause and CVD death in those with obesity (HR, 1.68; 95%CI, 1.12-2.52; HR, 1.96; 95%CI, 1.23-3.13, respectively).
conclusionsThis study revealed that the presence of RMA is independently associated with greater risks of all-cause, CVD and other-cause mortality in adults aged 40 years or older.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.