Diagnosis and Risk Factors in Retinopathy of Prematurity: A Five-Year Single-Center Descriptive Study

We aimed to determine the incidence and screening outcomes of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in preterm infants managed at a tertiary neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and to identify associated risk factors.

Medical records of 454 premature infants who underwent ROP screening between April 2016 and August 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. Infants with birth weight (BW) ≤ 1500 g or ≤32 weeks of gestational age and those with BW > 1500 g or GA > 32 weeks who had an unstable clinical course were included. All of them were born in the same center. Demographic characteristics, potential risk factors for ROP, ocular examination findings, and treatment requirement were recorded.

During the five-year study period, ROP was observed in 75 (16.6%) of a total of 454 premature infants with a mean gestational age (GA) of 30.19 ± 2.49 weeks and a mean BW of 2025.15 ± 614.46 g in the NICU. Of these patients, 67 (14.8%) had stage I disease and 8 (1.8%) had stage II disease. Advanced-stage ROP was not detected in any of the cases. The median GA of patients diagnosed with ROP was 29 weeks (22-35) and the median BW was 2100 g (500-3750), which were significantly lower than those without ROP (p < 0.001). When multivariate logistic regression analysis was evaluated with the Wald method, the accuracy rate of the model examining the combined effect of GA, intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH), respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), and surfactant treatment was 85.9%. In this model, gestational age (OR: 0.712, p < 0.001), IVH (OR: 2.915, p = 0.010), RDS (OR: 2.129, p = 0.004), NEC (OR: 3.679, p < 0.001), PDA (OR: 2.434, p = 0.021), and surfactant treatment (OR: 2.271, p = 0.002) were found to be independent risk factors for ROP development.

Small GA and low BW are the main risk factors for the development of ROP. The incidence of ROP was found to be lower than similar studies conducted in our country. While severe ROP cases have been reported in more mature infants in Turkey, our study found no treatment-requiring ROP cases, likely reflecting the higher mean GA and BW characteristics of our cohort.