Monitoring Retinopathy of Prematurity: A New Form for the Nursery

Sir.—The improved survival rate of very-low-birth-weight infants (<1500 g) in the United States during the past two decades has been associated with a concomitant rise in the prevalence of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).¹ The findings of the Multicenter Trial of Cryotherapy for Retinopathy of Prematurity (CRYO-ROP)² confirm that cryotherapy reduces ocular morbidity in infants with ROP. With the possible emergence of retinal cryotherapy and/or laser treatment^3,4 as standards of care for this disease, the role of the pediatric ophthalmic consultation assumes increasing importance. The ROP examination form presented herein provides ophthalmologists, neonatologists, and nursery staff with an efficient and graphically expressive method for recording the ROP diagnosis and monitoring the disease progression.

Retinopathy of prematurity is a disorder affecting the incompletely vascularized retina of premature infants. Retinal vasculogenesis begins at the optic disc at 16 weeks' gestation when blood vessels grow from the posterior pole out