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Oral Propranolol: A New Treatment for Infants with Retinopathy of Prematurity?

Christoph Bührer1, Dirk Bassler

  • 1Department of Neonatology, Charité University Medical Center, Berlin, Germany.

Neonatology
|May 14, 2015
PubMed

Insights

Oral propranolol may reduce the need for interventions in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) for preterm infants. Further large studies are needed to confirm the benefit-risk ratio of this treatment.

Area of Science:

  • Neonatal medicine
  • Ophthalmology
  • Pharmacology

Background:

  • Infantile hemangiomas are treated with oral propranolol, a drug now available as a pediatric solution.
  • Very preterm infants with infantile hemangiomas are also at risk for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).
  • Both infantile hemangiomas and ROP share a similar disease progression timeline.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To review clinical studies on oral propranolol use in preterm infants diagnosed with ROP.

Main Methods:

  • Two pilot randomized controlled trials were analyzed.
  • Data from infants receiving oral propranolol versus control groups were compared.

Main Results:

  • A trend towards reduced ROP intervention was observed in infants treated with oral propranolol (17%) compared to controls (39%).
  • The reduction in ROP interventions was not statistically significant.
  • Ongoing trials are investigating early preventive propranolol and propranolol eye drops for ROP.

Conclusions:

  • Larger interventional studies are necessary to establish the clinical benefit-risk balance of oral propranolol for preventing vision-threatening ROP in very preterm infants.
Abstract

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