Epidemiology

An estimated 196 million people globally suffer from age-related macular degeneration (AMD), with about 5.3% having moderate or severe distance vision impairment or blindness.[5] Of the global 33.6 million adults aged 50 years and older who were blind in 2020, 1.8 million had AMD.[6][7]​ Due to population ageing, the number of AMD patients is expected to increase annually.[5]​

AMD is more prevalent in Europe (18.3%) and North America (14.3%) than in Asia (6.9%).[8]​ Although rates do not appear to differ by sex, they do differ by ethnicity. For example, prevalence of AMD among people of European ancestry (12.3%) is greater than that reported in people of African ancestry (7.5%) and Asian ancestry (7.4%). Europeans have a higher prevalence of the geographic atrophy subtype (1.11%) than either African (0.14%), Asian (0.21%), or Hispanic (0.16%) populations.[8]

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