Retinopathy of prematurity: future vision and challenges.

I read with interest the paper by Chaudhari, et al.(1) in the March 2009 issue of Indian Pediatrics and would like to congratulate the authors for broaching and researching on retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Oxygen administration, septicemia and apnea were found to be the significant risk factors reported. This is in agreement with a retrospective study from Pakistan at a tertiary care centre where sepsis, duration of supplemental oxygen therapy, mechanical ventilation and respiratory distress syndrome were found to be significantly associated with the development of ROP(2).In a study from a tertiary care centre in Nepal, oxygen supplementation was identified as an independent risk factor for ROP(3). It is important to collect more data from the developing world to quantify the true burden of this disease. This should dictate the future resources allocated for this problem. Meanwhile, the need for Retinopathy of Prematurity: Future Vision and Challenges the development and execution of an effective and successful screening program in developing countries can not be overemphasized.