An Epidemiological Study of Retinopathy of Prematurity in the Maltese Population

Background: Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) is a proliferative retinal disease, characterized by abnormal development of retinal vessels in children of young gestational age and low birth weight. It remains a leading cause of childhood blindness, with more than 30,000 children affected worldwide annually.

Objective: Our primary objective is to assess the mean gestational age and birth weight for the development of ROP within the Maltese population. Our secondary objectives are to identify any correlation between pre-natal steroid us and maternal diabetes with the development of ROP.

Methods: A retrospective review of the ROP register from the Paediatric and Neonatology Department, Mater Dei Hospital Malta was undertaken. All patients screened for ROP between January 2012 to April 2017 were included. The notes of each infant as well as the maternal notes were reviewed in order to collect and collate the data. Cases with incomplete or unavailable data were not used for the purposes of this study.

Results: The data has not yet been analyzed due to the time restrictions for submission of this abstract. That being said, the results will prove to be interesting considering the high prevalence of diabetes amongst the Maltese population coupled with the common current practice of antenatal steroid use in pre-term infants. Nonetheless, the small genetic pool of the Maltese population will shed light onto the influence genetics may have on the course of ROP should any discrepancy in the results of the primary objectives be obtained compared to already published data.

Conclusion: We hypothesize that the mean birth weight and mean gestational age in infants with ROP on the Maltese islands could vary from already published data, with some influence coming from the large prevalence of diabetes mellitus amongst mothers of childbearing age.

Key Words: ROP, Malta, Epidemiology, Diabetes mellitus, pre-natal steroids