Risk Factors in Patients with Retinal Vein Branch Occlusion

Aim:Retinal vein occlusion is among the causes of preventable blindness. The most important risk factors are age and hypertension. The aim of our study was to determine the prevalence of venous occlusion and to determine risk factors in a large rural area. Material and Methods: The patients who were admitted to the health centers in the rural areas of Eski？ehir and who had retinal fundus photographs with non-mydriatic fundus camera were examined retrospectively. The data of about age, sex, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), history of diabetes mellitus (DM) /hypertension (HT), smoking and alcohol use, medication and body mass index (BMI) were obtained from the questionnaire forms. Venous branch occlusion (VBO) diagnosis of the participants was investigated the relationship with the above factors. SPSS 15.0 and SigmaStat 3.5 were used for statistical analysis. The data were evaluated by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for normal distribution. Chi-Square test was used to evaluate categorical variables (gender, smoking/alcohol use, presence of DM / HT), Mann Whitney U test was used to evaluate continuous variables (age, body mass index and blood pressure values). p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results:Gender, age, presence of HT, SKB and DKB values were different between the two groups; No difference was observed between the two groups in terms of alcohol and smoking, DM and BMI. Conclusion:Age and HT are the most important risk factors for VBO. As HT is a manageable variable, HT control is important for patient survival