Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a major morbidity in preterm infants causing visual impairment including blindness. Prevention and timely treatment are critical. We investigated the potential role of red blood cell (RBC) transfusions as risk factor for ROP development.
Retrospective cohort study of data from 68 tertiary level neonatal intensive care units in Germany. Preterm infants born at 22 + 0 to 28 + 6 weeks of gestation between January 2009 and December 2021 were enrolled.
We included n = 12 565 infants. Prevalence of any ROP was 49.2% with most infants being diagnosed with stage 1 (21.5%) and 2 disease (17.2%). ROP stage 3 was present in 10.2%, stage 4 in 0.3%, and ROP requiring treatment in 6.6%. Infants with ROP had significantly more frequently a history of RBC transfusions. Adjusting for confounders, RBC transfusions were associated with increased odds of ROP (OR 1.4, p < 0.001), ROP progression (OR 2.1, p < 0.01) and ROP requiring treatment (OR 3.6, p < 0.001). Restrictive transfusion approaches correlated with decreased (OR 0.7, p < 0.001), liberal regimes with increased odds (OR 1.2, p = 0.001).
The present study confirmed an association of RBC transfusions and ROP. Our findings emphasise the need for anaemia prevention and critical re-evaluation of transfusion practices in preterm infants.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 7. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 07 January 2024.
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