Purpose: To compare the incidence, progression, and duration of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in low-birth-weight Hispanic and white non-Hispanic infants.
Methods: A total of 671 white non-Hispanic infants and 128 Hispanic infants with birth weights less than 1751 g were retrospectively evaluated to determine the incidence of both ROP and subthreshold or worse ROP. Multiple regression analysis was used to control for birth weight, gestational age at birth, year of birth, and newborn intensive care unit as contributing factors in the risk of ROP. The duration of ROP in untreated infants was calculated and compared for the two ethnic groups.
Results: There was no significant difference in the percentage of infants with ROP in the white non-Hispanic group (38.3%) versus the Hispanic group (41.4%). There was also no significant difference between white non-Hispanics (11.8%) and Hispanics (15.6%) in the risk of developing subthreshold or worse ROP. Multiple regression analysis showed no contribution of ethnicity to the risk of developing ROP (t = -0.34, p = 0.74) or subthreshold or worse ROP (t = 0.75, p = 0.45). The average duration of untreated ROP in white non-Hispanics (8.6 +/- 5.4 weeks) and Hispanics (8.9 +/- 7.0 weeks) also was not significantly different. However, Hispanic infants showed significantly higher variance in duration than white non-Hispanic infants (p = 0.04).
Conclusions: ROP occurs with similar frequency in Hispanic and white non-Hispanic premature infants, as does subthreshold or worse ROP. Some Hispanic infants had an unusually short or long duration of ROP before regression, implying that the natural history of ROP may be somewhat different for the two ethnic groups.