Export Objective: To report the prevalence retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and its classification in a sample of premature Iraqi newborns, and to investigate the associated risk factors. Methods: An observational retrospective cohort study carried out at Ophthalmology department/Hemayat Al-Tifil Hospital/Medical City Complex in Baghdad. The data were collected from patients’ case files from December 2019 until the end of March 2021 targeting premature newborns with gestational age <37 weeks who had dilated fundus examination and completed the follow-up. Results: During the study period 269 cases were enrolled with a mean gestational age of 31.3±2.2 weeks, 9.3% aged less than 28 weeks, with a birth weight of 1558.7±476.8 grams. From the total sample 19 (7.1%) had type-1 ROP, 43 (16%) had type-2 ROP, and 70 (26%) had any ROP. Type-1 ROP was significantly associated with low gestational age (16% of cases aged <28 weeks), respiratory distress syndrome (20%) and low birth weight (21.4% in cases with birth weight less than 1051 g). Poor weight gain maintained a statistically significant association with type-1 ROP in multivariate regression analysis. Conclusions: The incidence of type-1 ROP in the study sample was comparable to results in other countries. Factors that were associated with increased risk for ROP after multivariate analysis was only poor weight gain.
Abdulsahib et al. (Fri,) studied this question.