Work

Nationwide Increase in the Incidence of Retinopathy of Prematurity in the US—A Growing Problem?

Year: 2023

Type: article

Abstract: Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a leading cause of treatable childhood blindness worldwide.The epidemiology of ROP has been studied globally, finding large variations in ROP incidence across the world likely due to differences in neonatal care, oxygen use, and mortality of premature infants.Because advances in neonatal care lead to increasing survival of premature infants, and subsequently, the incidence of ROP, nationwide studies of ROP epidemiology are necessary to monitor the changes in ROP incidence, severity, and treatment pattern.In this issue of JAMA Ophthalmology, Bhatnagar et al 1 report the change of ROP incidence in the US between 2003 to 2019.Based on their retrospective analysis of the National Healthcare Cost and Utilization Projects Kids' Inpatient databases that included more than 125000 ROP discharges from over 23 million births, they found that ROP incidence rate among premature infants increased from 4.4% in 2003 to 8.1% in 2019 (86% relative increase) nationwide with the largest increase found in Black infants (from 5.8% to 11.6%) and Hispanic infants (4.6% to 8.2%).These findings are important for multiple stakeholders in the US health care system, including patients, their families, physicians, and policy makers.We congratulate Bhatnagar et al for the excellent work and for providing these important data.However, the appropriate interpretation of these findings from this retrospective analysis of health care data needs to be assessed alongside previous similar studies to understand its implication in ROP management and future research.The increases in ROP incidences in US over the past 20 years have been previously reported.2,3 The study by Ludwig et al, 2 also using the National Healthcare Cost and Utilization Projects Kids' Inpatient databases, reported that ROP incidence increased from 14.7% in 2000 to 19.9% in 2012.Although both studies used the same databases

Source: JAMA Ophthalmology

DOI: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2023.0926

Authors: Gui-shuang Ying, Graham E. Quinn

Institutions: University of Pennsylvania, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Language: English

Topic: Retinopathy of Prematurity Studies

Subfield: Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Eye Institute