TUESDAY, Nov. 26, 2019 (HealthDay News) — A new screening method accurately predicts retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and reduces the number of infants undergoing eye exams, according to a study published online Nov. 14 in JAMA Ophthalmology.
Gil Binenbaum, M.D., from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and colleagues evaluated the generalizability of the Postnatal Growth and Retinopathy of Prematurity Study (G-ROP) screening criteria in a new cohort of at-risk infants. The analysis included 3,981 premature infants (median gestational age, 28 weeks; median birth weight, 1,072 g) at risk for ROP and with known ROP outcomes treated at 41 hospitals in the United States and Canada from Sept. 8, 2015, to June 13, 2017.
The researchers found that G-ROP criteria correctly predicted 100 percent of type 1 ROP cases (219) while reducing the number of infants undergoing examinations by 35.6 percent (1,418 infants). In a second analysis combining the current cohort with the cohort from the first G-ROP Study (11,463 total infants), the G-ROP criteria predicted 100 percent of type 1 ROP cases (677) and reduced the number of infants receiving examinations by 32.5 percent (3,730 infants). Current criteria (birth weight <1,501 g or gestational age ≤30 weeks, 0 days) predicted 674 of 677 type 1 cases (99.6 percent).
“The large G-ROP cohorts provide evidence-based screening criteria that have higher sensitivity and higher specificity (fewer infants receiving examinations) for type 1 ROP than currently recommended guidelines,” the authors write.
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