Operational guidelines for ROP in India: A Summary

Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) is a potentially blinding disease of the eye that can affect infants born four or more weeks preterm and have received intensive neonatal care. ROP is a dynamic, time-bound disease that is not present at birth. Preventing visual loss from ROP in India requires scaling up services for screening and treatment for ROP to match the exponential growth in neonatal intensive care in India and other low- and middle-income countries. Operational guidelines for prevention of visual loss from ROP will facilitate rapid scale up of services, by identifying key players and their roles and responsibility in the Indian context. The guidelines recommend broad eligibility criteria for screening (gestational age ≤34 weeks, birth weight ≤2000 gms) as the special newborn care unit (SNCU) have varying quality of neonatal care. Treatment is based on the early treatment for retinopathy of prematurity (ET-ROP) study treatment criteria. The screening criteria could be revisited when more contextual evidence on the risk of ROP is available in India.