Abstract
The purpose of the study was to determine the incidence of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), to identify the risk factors that predispose to ROP, and to assess the outcome of these infants.
This was a retrospective cohort study on premature infants with a birth weight (BW) of <1501 g or gestational age (GA) of <32 weeks. These infants were admitted to the NICU at a tertiary hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from January 2010 to December 2014.
Five hundred and ninety-three infants were included; data were available for 581 infants. Of them, 224 infants (38.6%) had ROP. Of these, 22 infants (10.4%) had stage 3 ROP. The mean BW of infants with ROP was 938.4 ± 257.9 g, and the mean GA at birth was 27 ± 2.4 weeks. A significant relationship with a
< 0.05 was found between the occurrence of ROP and small GA at birth, low BW, low APGAR score at 1 min, and long duration of receiving oxygen (O
) therapy. Based on charts review, none of the infants had blindness.
The incidence of ROP in our study falls in the range of incidence in developing countries. The low BW and small GA were the most significant risk factors. Furthermore, it is also recommended to control the amount and duration of O
therapy to as little as needed.