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PEDIATRICS Vol. 108 No. 2 August 2001, pp. 526-526

A Sudden Rise in the Prevalence of Retinopathy of Prematurity Blindness?

To the Editor.

Your readers will be interested in a recent observation of the Blind Babies Foundation (BBF). Our agency was founded 50 years ago in response to the needs of parents of infants blinded at the time of the retrolental fibroplasia epidemic. We serve preschool blind and children with severe visual impairment (birth to 6 years of age) and their families in 19 Northern California counties.

BBF has become aware of a sudden increase in blindness caused by retinopathy of prematurity (ROP); the prevalence of ROP blindness among our referrals has doubled in the past 2 years.

Year of Birth 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 (Incomplete) Number of referrals 156 154 147 134 114 23 Number of ROP-blind 19 13 20 20 25 7 Percent of ROP-blind 12% 8% 14% 15% 22% 30%

Additionally, 2 recent publications^1,2 support our observations that the current population of infants with ROP blindness are medically fragile and are more multi-impaired than in the past. These complications present a considerable challenge to their families and to our home counselors who are trying to help them learn about the impact of blindness on early development and to help their children become literate and independent in the world.

We bring these observations to the attention of your readers in the hope they will stimulate interest in and examination of the recent prevalence of ROP blindness. Informal discussion with colleagues in other states has suggested to us that the current increase is not confined to Northern California.

Chris Tompkins
Blind Babies Foundation
San Francisco, CA 94112

REFERENCES

1. Wood NS, Marlow N, Costeloe K, Neurologic and developmental disability after extremely premature birth. N Engl J Med. 2000; 343:378-384 [Abstract/Free Full Text]
2. Hack M, Taylor HG Perinatal brain injury in preterm infants and later neurobehavioral function. N Engl J Med. 2000; 343:429-430 [Free Full Text]

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Pediatrics (ISSN 0031 4005). Copyright ©2001 by the American Academy of Pediatrics
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This Article Extract Full Text (PDF) An erratum has been published Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services E-mail this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to My File Cabinet Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Tompkins, C. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Tompkins, C. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?