Abstract
Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a common retinal disease in preterm babies. To prolong the lives of preterm babies, high oxygen is provided to mimic the oxygen level in the intrauterine environment for postnatal organ development. However, hyperoxia-hypoxia induced pathological events occur when babies return to room air, leading to ROP with neuronal degeneration and vascular abnormality that affects retinal functions. With advances in neonatal intensive care, it is no longer uncommon for increased survival of very-low-birth-weight preterm infants, which, therefore, increased the incidence of ROP. ROP is now a major cause of preventable childhood blindness worldwide. Current proven treatment for ROP is limited to invasive retinal ablation, inherently destructive to the retina. The lack of pharmacological treatment for ROP creates a great need for effective and safe therapies in these developing infants. Therefore, it is essential to identify potential therapeutic agents that may have positive ROP outcomes, especially in preserving retinal functions. This review gives an overview of various agents in their efficacy in reducing retinal damages in cell culture tests, animal experiments and clinical studies. New perspectives along the neuroprotective pathways in the developing retina are also reviewed.
Highlights
Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a vasoproliferative retinal disease in the preterm babies
Animal Models for ROP—Oxygen-Induced Retinopathy (OIR). It is an ethical problem for drug testing in human preterm infants; an animal model is desirable for studying the mechanism and possible therapy for ROP
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) was intraocularly injected during hyperoxia, and this prevented the apoptosis of vascular endothelial cells, resulting in the reduction of avascular area in the rat oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) model
Summary
Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a vasoproliferative retinal disease in the preterm babies. As the preterm infant has an immature cardiopulmonary system, it needs to be placed in high supplemental oxygen This places the development of the retina at risk and results in ROP. Latest estimates from the National Eye Institute showed that 1100–1500 infants (~5% infants ≤1.25 kg at birth,
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