To study the significance of various risk factors in development of retinopathy of prematurity at a tertiary care center in Eastern Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

Retinopathy of prematurity is a multi factorial vaso-proliferative disease that is the most common cause of preventable childhood blindness worldwide.This study aims to determine the frequency, clinical course and risk factors of ROP in premature infants treated in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NNICU) of our hospital. In this retrospective observational study the case records of 243 infants who visited our ROP clinic between January 2020 and august 2021 were reviewed. The mean GA was 33.4 weeks and the mean birth weight was 1.3 kg. A total of 55 (22.82%) patients developed ROP. low birth weight (p value = <0.001), low gestational age (p value = <0.001), multiple pregnancy (p value 0.002), blood transfusion (p value = 0.033), sepsis (p value = 0.009, odds ratio = 2.29 at CI 95%), oxygen supplementation (p value = <0.001 odds ratio= 10.56 at CI 95%) and duration of oxygen (p value = <0.001, odds ratio =1.93 at CI 95%) were significant risk factor for development of ROP. 2 (3.63%) cases were zone I, 8 (14.54%) zone II, and 45 (81.81 %) in zone III. Out of which 8 had plus disease. Analysis of the risk factor for severity of disease was found to be statistically significant with multiple pregnancy (p value = 0.015).Our study shows less gestational age, low birth weight and supplemental oxygen along with sepsis as biggest risk factor for development of ROP in our set –up and multiple pregnancy for severity.