Survey on retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in Italy

BACKGROUND: This study aims to investigate the incidence and the relative risk factors of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and posterior-ROP (P-ROP): ROP in Zone I and posterior Zone II, as well as to analyze the occurrence of surgical treatment of ROP and to evaluate the short term outcome of the disease in Italy. METHODS: It is a prospective multicenter observational study; all infants with a birth weight (BW) ≤ 750 g and/or a gestational age (GA) ≤27 weeks born between January 1(st) 2008 and December 31(st) 2009 in 25 III level Italian neonatal intensive care units were eligible for the study. RESULTS: 421 infants were examined: 265 (62.9%) developed ROP and 102 (24.2%) P-ROP. Following the multivariate analysis erythropoietin-therapy (p < 0.0001) and intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) (p = 0.003) were significantly associated with ROP while gestational age ≤24 weeks (p = 0.011) and sepsis (p = 0.002) were associated with the onset of P-ROP. Eighty nine infants (34%) required surgical treatment; following the multivariate analysis P-ROP was an independent factor associated with the need of surgical treatment (p < 0.0001). A favorable outcome was reported in 251 (94.7%) newborns affected by ROP. Adverse outcome occurred in 14 patients: all of them underwent surgery and showed P-ROP. CONCLUSIONS: P-ROP is the most aggressive type of ROP. It associates with lower GA and sepsis. Obstetricians and Neonatologists must focus on the reduction of severe preterm births and on the prevention of neonatal early and late onset sepsis in order to reduce the incidence of P-ROP.