Table 1 Studies investigating mortality associated with presence of cataract on clinical examination

Ref no	Author	Publication year	Exam/op year	Follow-up year	Region	Index population (lens changes on clinical exam)	Comparison population (no lens changes on clinical exam)	Primary result
1	Podgor et al	1985	1973–5	1979–82	USA	n = 710	n = 1235	DRR = 1.39
2	Klein et al	1989	1980–2	1986–8	USA	Patients with diabetes n = 182	Patients with diabetes n = 1172	Cataract subjects had lower survival adjusted for age and sex
3	Cohen et al	1990	1982	1988	UK	Patients with diabetes n = 108	Patients with diabetes n = 184	OR = 2.4
4	Thompson et al	1993	1982–4	1990	UK	n = 394	n = 79	RR = 1.52
5	Klein et al	1995	1988–90	3 November 1993	USA	n = 1573	n = 3244	HR = 1.28
6	Klein et al	1999	1980–2	8–16-year follow-up	USA	Diabetics n = 1441	Diabetics n = 925	HR = 0.83 type 1 DM
								HR = 1.22 type 2 DM
7	West et al	2000		2-year follow-up	USA	Total = 2520 n = ?	Total = 520 n = ?	OR = 2.23
8	Christen et al	2000	1982	Dec 1995	USA	Male physicians with self-reported cataract n = 581	Male physicians without self-reported cataract n = 18 088	RR = 1.03 (multivariate adjusted)
9	Hennis et al	2001	1988–92	4-year follow-up	Barbados	Black subjects n = 1863	Black subjects n = 2432	RR = 1.6 mixed opacities
								RR = 1.5 nuclear (multivariate adjusted)
10	Wang et al	2001	1992–4	1997–9	Australia	Nuclear n = 309	n = ?	RR = 1.5 (1.1 to 1.9) nuclear
						PSC n = 425		RR = 1.5 (1.1 to 2.0) PSC
						Cortical n = 423		RR = 1.3 (1.1 to 1.6) cortical (multivariate adjusted)
11	Reidy et al	2002	1995–9	3.45-year follow-up (average)	UK	>65-year-olds n = 570	65-year-olds n = 748	HR = 1.7 (1.1 to 2.7) Female
								HR = 0.9 (0.6 to 15) Male
12	Borger et al	2003	1990	2000	The Netherlands	n = 298	n = 5090	HR = 0.94 (0.74 to 1.21)
13	McGwin et al	2003	1994–6	31 December 2000	USA	n = 86	Subjects from ophthalmology clinics n = 98	MRR = 3.2 (1.2 to 9.0) (multivariate adjusted)
14	Nucci et al	2004	1987	1994	Italy	Cortical n = 63	n = 719	HR 4.32 (1.13 to 16.4) nuclear opacity
						Nuclear n = 19		HR = 18.3 (3.21 to 104.0) aphakia (multivariate adjusted)
						Mixed n = 44
						Aphakia n = 6
15	Knudtson et al	2006	1987–8	2002	USA	Total = 4926 n = ?	Total = 4926 n = ?	HR = 1.16 (1.03 to 1.32) p = 0.02 (multivariate adjusted)

All analyses are age- and gender-adjusted. 95% CIs are given in parentheses where available.
DRR, death rate ratio; HR, hazard ratio; MRR, mortality rate ratio; OR, odds ratio; RR, relative risk.