The Association Between Intrauterine Growth Restriction and Severe Retinopathy of Prematurity

Abstract

Purpose: : Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a leading cause of blindness in children. Although low birth weight is a major risk factor for developing ROP, little is known about the association between low birth weight secondary to intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and ROP. The aim of the current study was to investigate the association between intrauterine growth restriction and severe retinopathy of prematurity requiring treatment.

Methods: : We performed a retrospective review of consecutive non-black inborn patients screened for ROP (GA < 32 weeks and/or BW < 1500 g) in the neonatal intensive care unit of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center from June 2002 to August 2008. IUGR was defined as a birth weight less than the tenth percentile for that gestational age. We used birth weight percentile cutoffs from an updated version of Babson and Benda's fetal growth chart. Patients were divided into IUGR and non-IUGR groups.

Results: : Our study included 373 infants, of whom 43 (11.5%) were born IUGR and 330 (88.5%) were not IUGR with mean BW’s of 939g and 1264g, respectively (P<0.05). GA, oxygen exposure, and treatment criteria were comparable between both groups. Using single variable analyses, we did not observe strong data to suggest that risk of ROP for IUGR patients was different than in non-IUGR patients. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated to be: for the development of stage 0 [OR 0.86; 95% CI 0.40-2.30; P=0.73], stage 1 (OR 1.24; 95% CI 0.60-2.40; P=0.58), stage 2 (OR 0.80; 95% CI 0.30-2.20; P=0.66), stage 3 (OR 1.08; 95% CI 0.40-2.90; P=0.88), and treatment requiring ROP (OR 0.90; 95% CI 0.20-3.90; P=0.88).

Conclusions: : In this series, there was no difference in the development of treatment requiring ROP for patients identified as being born with IUGR and for those non-IUGR patients.

Keywords: retinopathy of prematurity • retina