Retinopathy of Prematurity

This is an observational study in which only data from babies with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) who are being treated with aflibercept (Eylea) in prefilled syringe (PFS) using a paediatric dosing device (PDD) are collected and studied. ROP is a condition that affects the eyes of preterm babies. It occurs when the baby's retina, the part of the eye that senses light, does not develop normally. This may result in vision problems, including blindness, if left untreated. Preterm babies are born before 37 weeks of pregnancy. ROP is more likely to develop in babies who are born before 32 weeks of pregnancy or weigh less than 1.5 kilograms at birth. Aflibercept is a drug that is injected into the eye. It works by blocking a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) which causes abnormal growth of blood vessels in the retina. Aflibercept in PFS given using a PDD is approved for the treatment of babies with ROP. The prefilled syringe will be fitted with an injection needle to give aflibercept. And a PDD is a tool used to give the right amount of aflibercept to children in a safe manner. Since there are other treatments which are commonly used for babies with ROP, the extent of use of aflibercept given using a PDD is unknown. The main purpose of this study is to: * find the number of preterm babies who are treated with aflibercept using a PDD in the UK * inform whether this number is enough to perform a study to learn about the long-term safety of aflibercept given using a PDD in babies with ROP An additional purpose of this study is to describe characteristics including age, sex, and race, and signs and symptoms of ROP observed in babies being treated with aflibercept using a PDD. The data will come from a database called the National Neonatal Research Database. The study will cover the period from March 2024 to March 2025, if the number of babies found is enough to perform the safety study. If not, data will be collected till April 2027. In this study only available data from preterm babies born during the study period are collected. No visits or tests are required as part of this study.

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a disorder of development of the neural retina and its vasculature that can impact vision in vulnerable preterm neonates for a lifetime. This study tests high-speed optical coherence tomography (OCT) technology compared to conventional color photographs at the bedside of very preterm infants in the intensive care nursery, to characterize previously unseen abnormalities that can predict a need for referral for ROP treatment, or poor visual or neurological development later in life, up to pre-school age. Our long-term goal is to help improve preterm infant health and vision via objective bedside imaging and analysis that characterizes early critical indicators of ROP, and poor visual function and neurological development, which will rapidly translate to better early intervention and improved future care.

Extremely premature infants are at risk of developing a potentially blinding eye disease, called retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Currently available treatment, consisting of laser surgery or injection of drugs into the eye balls, may prevent most but not all cases of permanent ROP-mediated blindness. Both types of treatment are associated with significant costs and side effects. An orally administered drug commonly used to treat hypertension, propranolol, may be effective in halting progression of ROP to severe stages, as suggested by preliminary data from small studies. As severe (threshold) ROP is an overall rare disease, the effectiveness of propranolol in combating ROP can only be assessed in a large, multicenter randomized controlled trial involving hospitals caring for extremely preterm infants of diverse origin.

Retinopathy of prematurity is a leading cause of childhood blindness worldwide. The fovea, a critical location in the retina determining visual acuity and visual function, and the blood vessels around it, are abnormally developed in infants with retinopathy of prematurity. However, how these blood vessels form during development of the human fovea remains unclear. This research will advance our understanding of the fundamental knowledge of how the blood vessels around the fovea form in infants, and how they change in diseased states such as preterm birth or retinopathy of prematurity.

Background: Preterm infants undergo serial eye examinations during their hospital stay to monitor for the development of a specific disease termed "retinopathy of prematurity". While those examinations are known to cause significant pain and stress, the current standard of care (sucrose and local anesthesia) is not adequate in terms of alleviation of pain. Purpose: The goal of this clinical trial is to test the effectiveness of dexmedetomidine for pain management in preterm infants undergoing routine eye examinations. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Does dexmedetomidine reduce the pain scores of preterm infants during and shortly after eye assessments in comparison to placebo (saline 0.9%). * Does dexmedetomidine cause more adverse effects than placebo. In this crossover study participants will receive either dexmedetomidine or saline 0.9% intranasally 30 minutes before the examination, on top of the current standard of care. The participants will be monitored closely for 5 hours to note differences in adverse effects. The researchers will use video monitoring to assess the pain scores using a standardized and validated scoring system.

This study is a multi-center, prospective pre-post clinical study conducted under the leadership of the Turkish Neonatal Society. It aims to investigate the effects of a standardized skin-to-skin care in NICU, initiated early and applied regularly, on recieving exclusive mothers' milk at discharge and clinical outcomes for preterm infants born ≤ 32 weeks of gestation. 1. Primary Objective: To evaluate the rate of receiving exclusive mothers' milk at discharge for infants born ≤ 32 weeks of gestation who have received skin-to-skin care in accordance with the study protocol. 2. Secondary Objective: To evaluate the rates of neonatal sepsis, intraventricular hemorrhage, and necrotizing enterocolitis (stage 2 and above) as well as the length of hospital stay for infants born at or below 32 weeks of gestation who have received skin-to-skin care in accordance with the study protocol.

The study includes preterm infants who are being screened for ROP between August 1,2023 and August 1, 2024 in 94 neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in Turkey. Infants with birth weight (BW) of \>1500 g or ≥ 33 weeks' gestation who are screened for retinopathy of prematurity are included. The incidence of any ROP, severe ROP and treatment modalities will be determined. The risk factors for ROP development will also be evaluated.

Purpose:Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) continues tobe a major cause of blindness in children. Although ablation of the retina with laser or cryotherapy reduces the incidence of blindness by suppressing the neovascular phase of ROP the visual outcomes after treatment are often poor. Vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF) has an important role in the pathogenesis of ROP and inhibition of VEGF expression in the neovascular phase might prevent destructive neovascularization in ROP. The aim of this study is to determine the safety and efficacy of intravitreal bevacizumab in the treatment of retinopathy of prematurity

The EU-ROP registry is a European wide multicenter non-interventional observational registry study intended to run open-ended in as many countries as possible including infants treated for retinopathy of prematurity irrespective of the used treatment modality. The registry is strictly observational; only clinical routine data is collected, no study-specific examinations or interventions are to be performed. The aim of the EU-ROP registry is to collect information on as many patients as possible treated for ROP in Europe. Both the number of study centers as well as the number of patients to be included into the registry are not limited. The primary objective is to describe the typical clinical features of infants with severe ROP, variations in phenotype, and the clinical progression of the disease over time (natural history) in different European countries as well as to study treatment patterns, follow-up patterns, as well as long-term outcomes.

Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) is a vascular disease affecting the retinas (back of the eye) of low birth weight infants. Although it can be treated effectively if diagnosed early, it continues to be a leading cause of childhood blindness in the United States and throughout the world. The investigators feel that this study will result in specific knowledge discovery about ROP, as well as general knowledge about how image-based data and genetic data can be combined to better understand clinical disease. Participants will be recruited from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at OHSU, along with 4 collaborating institutions (William Beaumont Hospital, Stanford University, University of Illinois Chicago and University of Utah). Hospitalized infants who receive ROP screening examinations for routine care will be eligible for this study, and will be offered the opportunity to participate. Subjects who provide informed consent will have clinical data from routine care collected along with demographic characteristics, results from routine ROP screening examinations, presence of systemic disease or risk factors. Retinal photographs will be taken during these routine eye exams, using a commercially-available camera that has been FDA-cleared for taking pictures from retinas of premature infants. These retinal pictures do not contain any identifiable patient information, and are taken as routine standard of care. The long-term goal of this research is to establish a quantitative framework for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) care based on clinical, imaging, genetic, and informatics principles. The investigators have previously recruited and rigorously phenotyped and genotyped a large study cohort, including implementation of a novel reference standard diagnosis; and built a world-class research consortium for image, genetic, and bioinformatics analysis.