Long-term Ophthalmic Outcomes in Ex-premature Infants

Every year, around 18.000 children in the Netherlands are born prematurely, which means that they were born before 37 weeks gestational age. The WHO defines three different categories of prematurity: moderate to late preterm (32-37 weeks), very preterm (<32-28 weeks), and extremely preterm (<28 weeks). Preterm birth is associated with numerous health problems, which can have both short-term and long-term consequences on the development of the child. A relatively rare complication of (very or extreme) preterm birth is lifelong visual impairment or blindness due to retinal detachment as a result of prematurity retinopathy (ROP). ROP is a vasoproliferative condition that affects the vessels in the retina. An inventory study shows that 305 children were diagnosed with ROP in the Netherlands in 2017. The majority of these children experienced spontaneous regression of the condition, but 13% of cases required treatment to prevent retinal detachment. In the long-term, ROP predisposes for ocular conditions such as visual field abnormalities, refractive error, strabismus, amblyopia, glaucoma and retinal detachment. However, research also indicates that prematurity, regardless of ROP diagnosis, can also be associated with adverse ophthalmological outcomes such as refractive error, strabismus, amblyopia and cerebral visual impairment (CVI). Although there are various publications on the ophthalmological outcomes of ROP and prematurity at school-age, less is known about these outcomes in the adult population. This study aims to investigate the anatomy and functionality of the eye in ex-premature infants who were born between 1991 and 2006. In addition, the differences in outcomes between ex-premature infants with and without ROP, and the differences in outcomes between treated and spontaneously regressed ROP, will be studied.