Accuracy of the postnatal growth and retinopathy of prematurity screening criteria in predicting prethreshold retinopathy of prematurity in the tertiary hospital, Bangkok, Thailand

Dear Editor, We thank Prof. Mahmood Dhahir Al-Mendalawi for his knowledgeable comments on our study "Accuracy of the postnatal growth and retinopathy of prematurity screening criteria in predicting prethreshold retinopathy of prematurity in the tertiary hospital, Bangkok, Thailand"[1] published on Taiwan J Ophthalmol. Our retrospective study collected data before the third edition International Classification of Retinopathy of Prematurity (ICROP3)[2] was published which is the reason we classified ROP using the previous ICROP edition (2005). We had not integrated the retinal fundus camera into our ROP screening and follow-up which limited us to re-evaluate or overread but rely on the staging the experts provided. The ICROP3 improves the clarification of many important definitions such as zone, plus/preplus diseases, and the definitions of regression which are modified according to the pharmacological treatment options. These provide better communication among the ROP experts; better care includes the proper follow-up period for infants diagnosed with ROP. Our study aimed for a selective screening process to select the infants who are at risk of developing ROP to be screened, which is on the different aspect of the care process after the infants were diagnosed. Furthermore, the initial treatment criteria remain unchanged, so these will not affect our study result. Our current practice implements the Postnatal Growth and Retinopathy of Prematurity screening criteria[3] for screening and the ICROP3 classification for staging, follow-up, and care. Data availability statement Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest in this paper.