Interventions To Prevent Retinopathy of Prematurity: A Meta-analysis

The effectiveness of many interventions aimed at reducing the risk of retinopathy has not been well established.

To estimate the effectiveness of nutritional interventions, oxygen saturation targeting, blood transfusion management, and infection prevention on the incidence of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).

A comprehensive search of several databases was conducted, including Medline, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Scopus through March 2014.

We included studies that evaluated nutritional interventions, management of supplemental oxygen, blood transfusions, or infection reduction and reported the incidence of ROP and mortality in neonates born at <32 weeks.

We extracted patient characteristics, interventions, and risk of bias indicators. Outcomes of interest were any stage ROP, severe ROP or ROP requiring treatment, and mortality.

We identified 67 studies enrolling 21 819 infants. Lower oxygen saturation targets reduced the risk of developing any stage ROP (relative risk [RR] 0.86, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.77-0.97) and severe ROP or ROP requiring intervention (RR 0.58, 95% CI, 0.45-0.74) but increased mortality (RR 1.15, 95% CI, 1.04-1.29). Aggressive parenteral nutrition reduced the risk of any stage ROP but not severe ROP. Supplementation of vitamin A, E, or inositol and breast milk feeding were beneficial but only in observational studies. Use of transfusion guidelines, erythropoietin, and antifungal agents were not beneficial.

Results of observational studies were not replicated in randomized trials. Interventions were heterogeneous across studies.

At the present time, there are no safe interventions supported with high quality evidence to prevent severe ROP.