Factors Associated with Age-Related Maculopathy

描述（由申请人提供）：尽管进行了深入的研究，但对年龄相关性黄斑病变（ARM）的确切病因学了解甚少，这种毁灭性眼病的治疗选择有限。虽然一些与心脑血管疾病相关的因素，包括吸烟、饮酒和高血压，也被确定为ARM的危险因素，但这些可疑的危险因素与衰老之间的相互作用尚未得到充分研究。此外，由于ARM是一种复杂的疾病，其发展可能与多种因素有关。社区动脉粥样硬化风险（ARIC）研究是一项基于人群的纵向研究，于1986年至1999年在美国四个社区进行，旨在调查动脉粥样硬化的病因和自然史。在第三次访视期间（1993年至1995年）获得视网膜摄影图像并进行分级。在人群中观察到ARM的高患病率（白人为5.6%，黑人为3.7%），为风险因素分析提供了足够数量的病例。ARIC公共领域数据中提供了关于潜在风险因素的广泛的个人水平信息，包括社会经济状况，药物使用，生活方式因素以及脂质，血液学，止血和化学的定量测量。我们建议采用一种新开发的基于计算机的数据挖掘技术，对来自ARIC的数据进行二次分析，在视网膜评估时评估约600例ARM病例和12，000例对照个体的特征。具体目标是：1）探索ARM与ARIC研究中收集的所有潜在风险/保护因素之间的关系; 2）调查目标1所确定的因素与ARM老化之间的相互作用。我们的目标是为进一步研究ARM产生新的假设。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite intensive research, the precise etiology of age-related maculopathy (ARM) is poorly understood, and treatment options for this devastating eye disease are limited. Although some factors related to cerebrovascular or cardiovascular diseases, including smoking, alcohol and hypertension, also have been identified as risk factors for ARM, the interactions among these suspected risk factors with aging have not been fully investigated. Furthermore, since ARM is a complex disease, multifactors are likely to associate with its development. The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study was a population-based longitudinal study conducted between 1986 and 1999 in four U.S. communities to investigate the etiology and natural history of atherosclerosis. Retinal photographic images were obtained during the third visit (from 1993 to 1995) and graded. A high prevalence of ARM was observed in the population (5.6% in whites and 3.7% in blacks), providing a sufficient number of cases for risk factor analyses. Extensive individual-level information on potential risk factors is available in ARIC public domain data, including socioeconomic status, medication use, lifestyle factors, and quantitative measures of lipid, hematology, hemostasis and chemistry. We propose to employ a newly developed computer-based data mining technique to perform a secondary analysis on the data derived from ARIC, evaluating characteristics of approximately 600 ARM cases and 12,000 control individuals free from ARM at the time of retinal evaluation. Specific aims are 1) to explore the relationships between ARM and all the potential risk/protective factors for which data were collected in the ARIC study and 2) to investigate the interactions between the factors identified by aim 1 and aging in ARM. Our goal is to generate new hypotheses for further research on ARM.