The Association between Smoking and Epiretinal Membrane

We conducted a meta-analysis of analytic and observational studies to evaluate the association between smoking and epiretinal membrane (ERM). The pertinent studies were identified via a literature search using three databases (MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Embase) and the reference lists of retrieved studies. Cohort, case-control and cross-sectional studies meeting the predefined criteria were included. We extracted the odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) from each study. Overall risk estimates were pooled using random-effects models. Subgroup analyses based on several stratified factors were also performed. Two cohort studies and six cross-sectional studies involving 46,837 subjects were included. The pooled effect of all eight studies showed an unexpected significant decreased association between smoking and the occurrence of ERM (OR, 0.72; 95% CI 0.61–0.84; p = 0.29, I(2) = 17.9%). Subgroup analyses supported this finding, except for the age-unadjusted group (OR, 0.87; 95% CI 0.63–1.22), the ERM classification group (cellophane macular reflex (CMR) OR, 0.93; 95% CI 0.68–1.28; preretinal macular fibrosis (PMF) OR, 0.74; 95% CI 0.41–1.32), the Asian group (OR, 0.75; 95% CI 0.52–1.09) and the past smoker group (OR, 1.02; 95% CI 0.85–1.22). The pooled effects from the current literature suggested a declining association between smoking and ERM, which requires further studies to confirm.