Rate and Treatment of Retinopathy of Prematurity in Extremely Low Birth Weight Infants with Gestational Age ≤28 Weeks in Eastern China

Meng Zhang; Gezhi Xu; Xin Wang; Yingqin Ni; Xin Huang

doi:10.2147/RMHP.S282102

Rate and Treatment of Retinopathy of Prematurity in Extremely Low Birth Weight Infants with Gestational Age ≤28 Weeks in Eastern China

Risk Manag Healthc Policy. 2020 Dec 7:13:2867-2873. doi: 10.2147/RMHP.S282102. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Meng Zhang^{1

2}, Gezhi Xu^{1

2}, Xin Wang^{1

2}, Yingqin Ni^{1

2}, Xin Huang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Ophthalmology, Eye and ENT Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai 200031, People's Republic of China.
² Institute of Eye Research, Eye and ENT Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai 200031, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the incidence and clinical characteristics of ROP in extremely preterm (EP) and extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants in eastern China.

Patients and methods: This retrospective study included 104 infants with a birth weight (BW) ≤ 1000 g and gestational age (GA) ≤ 28 weeks, who were admitted to the Eye and ENT Hospital of Fudan University over 10 years. The infants were examined for ROP with RetCam. Infants with type 1 ROP and aggressive posterior ROP (AP-ROP) were treated. The risk factors evaluated were GA and BW.

Results: Mean GA was 26.63 ± 0.88 weeks and mean BW was 892.39 ± 108.06 g. Of the 104 infants, 83 (79.8%) developed ROP, three (2.9%) had AP-ROP, 14 (13.5%) had type 1 ROP, and 10 (9.6%) had type 2 ROP. The proportions of infants with BW ≤750 g and 751-1000 g were 8.7% and 91.3%, respectively, and the incidences of severe ROP in these infants were 22.2% and 15.8%, respectively. The infants with severe ROP had a mean GA of 26.56 ± 0.68 weeks and mean BW of 860.00 ± 163.48 g, and 47.1% of severe ROP occurred in infants with a GA of 26 weeks. However, multivariate logistic regression showed that the severity of ROP was not directly inversely related to GA or BW in this study population.

Conclusion: In EP and ELBW Chinese infants, who were admitted to the Eye and ENT Hospital of Fudan University, the development of ROP was more frequent and the incidence of severe ROP that progressed to the stage that required treatment was high.

Keywords: extremely low birth weight; extremely preterm; retinopathy of prematurity; risk factors.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (81570855, 81770944) and National Natural Science Foundation for Young Scholar of China (81400410).