Profile, Visual Presentation and Burden of Retinal Diseases Seen in Ophthalmic Clinics in Sub-Saharan Africa

Purpose: To determine the burden of retinal diseases and the degree of visual impairment associated with each disease, amongst Nigerians.

Patients and methods: This was a hospital-based multicenter, prospective, cross-sectional, non-comparative study conducted from January to December 2018. Data was obtained from consecutive patients with a retinal diagnosis presenting at the general ophthalmic and specialty retina clinics in four hospitals (three public, and one private teaching eye department) in Nigeria. Biodata, visual acuity and refraction, intraocular pressure, findings on dilated retinal examination, diagnosis and systemic diseases were noted. Degree of monocular and bilateral visual loss associated with each diagnosed retinal disease was summarized and p value was calculated using chi-square test. P < 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: Eight hundred seventy-six of 8614 patients had a retinal diagnosis; establishing a hospital-based retinal disease prevalence of 9.8%. Male:female ratio was 1.1:1. The mean age of study patients was 49.97 (standard deviation 17.64 years). Mean symptom duration was 21.63 months (standard deviation 41.94). The mean intraocular pressure was 13.87 mmHg. Forty-three different retinal diseases were diagnosed. The most common was retinal complications of diabetes, i.e., diabetic retinopathy (DR) alone, diabetic macular edema (DME) alone and a combination of DR and DME, which accounted for 13.7%, 5.6% and 9.3%, respectively (contributed 28.6% of the entire diagnosis). This was followed by retinal detachment (RD), in 219 eyes (15.4%), dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in 124 eyes (8.7%). Nearly half of the eyes were blind or severely visually impaired. Blindness occurred in 34.1% of eyes; severe visual impairment in 8.2% of eyes and 29.7% had normal vision. There were 469 patients who had systemic diseases. The common systemic diseases were hypertension in 169 patients (19.3% of the total number of patients), hypertension and diabetes in 156 patients (18%), and diabetes alone in 98 patients (11.1%). Sickle cell disease was present in 1.5%.

Conclusion: There is need to invest in infrastructure, local training and development of systems for early detection and treatment of several retinal diseases in sub-Saharan Africa; DR and DME having the largest burden. Collaborative physician care and management of hypertension and diabetes could significantly reduce the burden of DR and DME.