Retinopathy
of prematurity is a serious cause of blindness
in some babies who are born prematurely. The retinal
blood vessels do not develop completely until the
ninth month of pregnancy. When babies are born
prematurely, there is a region of retina that has
no circulation. Often the retinal blood vessels
will continue to develop following birth and no
problems will occur. However, in some patients,
abnormal blood vessels develop which cause scar
tissue to grow into the eye. The scar tissue can
pull on the retina causing it to detach from the
wall of the eye. Although surgery can be performed
on babies with retinal detachments, the prognosis
for recovery of vision is very poor.
A national collaborative study has published results
which show that treatment to this the region of
retina with no blood supply tends to reduce the
chances of blindness in patients with retinopathy
of prematurity and abnormal blood vessel growth.
This study found that without treatment there was
a 50% chance of severe visual loss or blindness
whereas with treatment, the chances of severe visual
loss were reduced to 20%. The treatment to thin
the peripheral retina was originally done with
freezing (cryopexy) treatment. More recently, however,
the treatment has been done with laser photocoagulation.
Additional studies have shown that laser photocoagulation
is equally effective and better tolerated then
cryo therapy in reducing the chance of severe visual
loss.
As with any treatment or operation, there are
possible complications. These include hemorrhage
and retinal detachment. However, if no treatment
is performed, there is an even greater chance of
retinal detachment or hemorrhage occurring in the
eye. |
