Lens opacities and senile maculopathy.

Analysis of data from a population survey, the Framingham Eye Study, shows that when the various senile lens changes are pooled, no associations with senile maculopathy are evident. Subgroup analysis shows the relative risk of senile maculopathy to be lower than 1.00 in the presence of nuclear sclerosis for all age groups and greater than 1.00 for persons between 52 and 74 years in the presence of cortical changes. Nuclear-cortical interaction tests are highly significant, indicating that nuclear sclerosis and cortical opacities have opposite effects on the relative risk of senile maculopathy.