The PhD defense will take place

Time: Friday February 10th, 2023 at 1 pm
Place: Auditorium B, Forskningens Hus, Sdr. Skovvej 14, 9000 Aalborg

After the defense there will be held a reception. All are welcome

About the PhD thesis

Retinal artery occlusion is a debilitating disease that may cause blindness in affected patients. We know that there are associations between retinal artery occlusion and cardiovascular diseases, but there are still major gaps in our knowledge of these occlusions. There are no definite guidelines for management of these patients and no effective treatment have been determined.

The overall aim of the thesis was to elucidate associations between retinal artery occlusion and cardiovascular diseases. The thesis is based on three studies, all of which use data from the Danish national registers.

In the first study, we examined cardiovascular diseases, ophthalmic diseases, systemic diseases and inflammatory diseases as risk factors for retinal artery occlusion.

In the second study, we investigated whether the CHA2DS2-VASc Stroke Risk score or the ESSEN Stroke Risk score could be used to identify patients with retinal artery occlusion who are at increased risk of stroke. We found an increasing risk of stroke with increasing levels the CHA2DS2-VASc score and the ESSEN score. However, the predictive abilities of the risk scores were poor.

In the third study, we investigated the risk of macrovascular complications in patients with diabetes with or without retinal artery occlusion. We found that the general risk of macrovascular complications was higher in patients with both diabetes and retinal artery occlusion compared to patients with diabetes and no diagnosis of retinal artery occlusion, indicating that retinal artery occlusion is a potential predictor of macrovascular complications in patients with diabetes.