PEDIATRICS Vol. 70 No. 4 October 1982, pp. 663
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Does Carbon Dioxide Play a Role in Retrolental Fibroplasia?

Charles R. Bauer MD1

1 Division of Neonatology, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33101

The role of carbon dioxide tensions in the evolution of acute and/or chronic retrolental fibroplasia (RLF) is a subject of much current interest. Flower and Blake1 have produced cicatricial disease for the first time in an animal model by inhibiting prostaglandin-mediated retinal vasoconstriction. Similar vascular alterations were induced in this puppy model by either aspirin pretreatment or by hypercarbia exposure—both resulting in vasodilator predominance and scarring disease. This suggests that "vasodilation" may be a pathologic process, rather than the oxygen-induced "vasoconstriction," which has previously been incriminated in the pathogenesis of this disease.