Evaluation of Foveal Hypoplasia in Children with a History of Retinopathy of Prematurity.

Purpose: To evaluate the foveal development in patients diagnosed with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and to evaluate whether foveal development was affected by treatment in ROP patients.

Methods: This cross-sectional study included patients with a history of ROP. Foveal development was compared between eyes with spontaneous regression and treated eyes. Additionally, gestational age, birth weight, ROP zone and stage, and postmenstrual gestational age at the time of treatment, were evaluated. The final visual acuity was analyzed according to the foveal hypoplasia (FH) severity.

Results: This study included 166 eyes from 83 patients. Foveal development was significantly different among the treatment and spontaneous regression groups, and FH was more severe in the treatment group. The prevalence of normal foveal development was higher in the spontaneous regression group than in the treatment groups. This suggests that ROP treatment may induce morphological alterations during foveal development. Gestational age, postmenstrual age at the time of treatment, ROP stage, and ROP zone were correlated with FH severity. Visual acuity was not affected by mild FH, and 88.5% of the patients had a visual acuity of LogMAR 0.

Conclusion: Early stage foveal development is not significantly disrupted in patients with ROP, and patients with ROP show no significant visual disturbance associated with FH. However,eyes treated for ROP either with laser photocoagulation or intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor demonstrated more severe hypoplasia compared to that with spontaneous regression.