Abstract
Purpose :
The interaction between intrauterine exposure to opioids on the severity of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) has not been examined thoroughly. We hypothesized that premature infants with opioid exposure during pregnancy would be more likely to require treatment for ROP.
Methods :
We identified all premature infants treated for ROP by Boston Children’s Hospital between 2014 and 2021. We reviewed all available medical records of these infants treated for ROP to determine if they had evidence of intrauterine opioid exposure.
Results :
Between 2014 and 2021, 2,399 infants were screened for ROP by the Boston Children’s Hospital ROP team at three hospitals in Massachusetts. Of these, 161 patients (7%) were treated for ROP with intravitreal injection of an anti-VEGF agent, peripheral retinal laser ablation, and/or vitrectomy surgery. Six of these 161 (4%) patients treated for ROP had evidence of opioid exposure during pregnancy on review of their medical records. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health found that 0.8% of newborns in the Boston region hospitalized between 2014-2018 had evidence of opioid exposure during pregnancy (data for more recent years were unavailable).
Conclusions :
The rate of recorded intrauterine opioid exposure among ROP treated babies (4%) compared with the estimation of intrauterine opioid exposure among all infants (0.8%) suggest that infants treated for ROP were more likely to have opioid exposure during pregnancy than infants in the cohort overall. A strength of this report is the large number of ROP-treated infants included; weaknesses include that the overall rate of intrauterine opioid exposure among the cohort was unavailable. To our knowledge, this is the first report investigating the relationship between intrauterine opioid exposure and ROP. Further studies that control for possible confounders such as birthweight and gestational age are needed.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.