Risk of glaucoma to subsequent dementia or cognitive impairment: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Substantial evidence supports that glaucoma and dementia share pathological mechanisms and pathogenic risk factors. However, the association between glaucoma, cognitive decline and dementia has yet to be elucidated. Objective This study was aimed to assess whether glaucoma increase the risk of dementia or cognitive impairment. Methods PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and EMBASE databases for cohort or case-control studies were searched from inception to March 10, 2024. The Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (NOS) was used to the risk of bias. Heterogeneity was rigorously evaluated using the I 2 test, while publication bias was assessed by visual inspection of the funnel plot and by Egger’ s regression asymmetry test. Subgroup analyses were applied to determine the sources of heterogeneity. Results Twenty-seven studies covering 9,061,675 individuals were included. Pooled analyses indicated that glaucoma increased the risk of all-cause dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and cognitive impairment. Subgroup analysis showed that the prevalence of dementia was 2.90 (95% CI: 1.45–5.77) in age ≥ 65 years and 2.07 (95% CI: 1.18–3.62) in age