Is Central Serous Chorioretinopathy a Risk Factor for Neurocardiovascular Disease Development?: 10-year Nationwide Population-based Study

Purpose: We evaluated the risk of neurocardiovascular disease development after central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC). Methods: We collected data from the Korean National Health Insurance Research Database (which contains information on 1,025,340 [2.2%] random subjects selected from all Korea residents in 2002). Patients diagnosed with CSC, stroke, or ischemic heart disease (IHD) from 2002 to 2005 were excluded. The CSC group featured patients initially diagnosed with CSC from January 2006 to December 2010. The comparison group included randomly selected patients (five per CSC patient) matched to CSC patients by age, sex, residential area, and household income. Results: Stroke developed in 4.41% of the CSC group and 4.11% of the comparison group. IHD developed in 7.93% of the CSC group and 7.27% of the comparison group. CSC was not significantly associated with an increased risk of stroke (hazard ratio [HR], 0.964; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.65-1.424; p = 0.8532) or IHD (HR, 0.942; 95% CI, 0.694-1.279; p = 0.7018) after adjusting for demographic characteristics and comorbidities. Subgroup analyses by age group and stroke subtype revealed no significant associations with CSC or IHD status. Conclusions: CSC was not associated with stroke or IHD development in patients of any age after adjusting for potential confounders. Further studies are needed to confirm a relationship between CSC and development of systemic cardiovascular disease.