Association of neovascular age-related macular degeneration with migraine

Patients with early onset vascular pathology have been reported to manifest neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). While the blood vessels involved in pathogenesis of migraine remains controversial, it is generally accepted that a major contributor is blood vessel pathology. This study aimed to examine the association between migraine and AMD using a nationwide population-based dataset. Retrospective claims data were collected from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. We identified 20,333 patients diagnosed with neovascular AMD (cases), and we selected 81,332 propensity score-matched controls from the remaining beneficiaries in Taiwan’s National Health Insurance system. We used Chi-square tests to explore differences in the prevalence of migraine prior to the index date between cases and controls. We performed multiple logistic regressions to estimate the odds of prior migraine among neovascular AMD patients vs. controls after adjusting for age, sex, monthly income, geographic location, residential urbanization level, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension, and previous cataract surgery. A total of 5184 of sample patients (5.1%) had a migraine claim before the index date; 1215 (6.1%) among cases and 3969 (4.9%) among controls (p < 0.001), with an unadjusted OR of 1.239 (95% CI 1.160~1.324, p < 0.001) for prior migraine among cases relative to controls. Furthermore, the adjusted OR was 1.201 (95% CI 1.123~1.284; p < 0.001) for AMD cases relative to controls. The study offers population-based evidence that persons with migraine have 20% higher risk of subsequently being diagnosed with neovascular AMD.