Anterior Chamber Angle in Adults Born Extremely, Very, and Moderately Preterm with and without Retinopathy of Prematurity—Results of the Gutenberg Prematurity Eye Study

Abstract

Purpose: To determine whether prematurity and associated factors affect the anterior chamber angle (ACA) width in adulthood. Methods: The Gutenberg Prematurity Eye Study (GPES) is a retrospective cohort study with a prospective ophthalmologic examination of adults (age 18–52 years) in Germany. All participants were examined with Scheimpflug imaging (Pentacam HR, Oculus Optikgeräte GmbH, Wetzlar, Germany) using linear regression analysis to assess the associations of ACA in the different sectors with gestational age (GA), birth weight, birth weight percentile, retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), ROP treatment, placental insufficiency, preeclampsia, and breastfeeding. Results: In total, 516 eyes of 319 preterm and full-term individuals (aged 28.9 ± 8.8 years, 188 females) were examined. ROP treatment was associated with smaller ACA width in the nasal (B = −9.6 [95%CI: −14.7; −4.5] degree; p < 0.001) and temporal positions (B = −11.5 [95%CI: −17.7; −5.3] degree; p = 0.001), whereas non-treated individuals with ROP had an unaltered ACA width, as did individuals with low gestational age without ROP. Conclusion: Advanced stages of ROP following treatment with laser- and cryocoagulation lead to a smaller ACA width until adulthood, and hence may increase the risk of angle closure in later life.

Dry Eye Parameters and Lid Geometry in Adults Born Extremely, Very, and Moderately Preterm with and without ROP: Results from the Gutenberg Prematurity Eye Study

“…For the GPES, every preterm newborn with a GA ≤ 32 weeks and every second randomly chosen preterm newborn with GA 33–36 weeks was contacted and invited to participate. From each month from 1969 to 2002, 6 (3 males and 3 females) randomly selected full-term subjects with a birth weight between the 10th and 90th percentile were also invited to serve as controls as reported earlier [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ].…”

“…For descriptive analysis, participants were allocated to group 1: full-term participants (GA ≥ 37 weeks), group 2: preterm participants with GA between 33–36 weeks without ROP, group 3: preterm participants with GA between 29–32 weeks without ROP, group 4: preterm participants with GA ≤ 28 weeks without ROP, group 5: preterm participants with GA ≤ 32 weeks with postnatal ROP without ROP treatment and group 6: preterm participants with GA ≤ 32 weeks with postnatal ROP and ROP treatment as reported earlier [ 21 , 22 ]. In the case that only one eye of a participant had ROP, the other non-ROP eye was excluded from the analysis.…”

Foveal and Peripapillary Choroidal Thickness in Adults Born Extremely, Very, and Moderately Preterm With and Without ROP–Results From the Gutenberg Prematurity Eye Study

“…Ophthalmic examinations were performed between 2019 and 2021, as reported earlier. 7 , 17 – 21 The eligibility and effective recruitment flow diagram are shown in Supplementary Figure S1 .…”

“…If only one eye of a participant had previous ROP, the other eye that did not have ROP was excluded from the analysis, as reported earlier. 7 , 17 – 21 …”

“…During the GPES examination, objective refraction and distance-corrected visual acuity of both eyes (ARK-1s; NIDEK, Oculus, Wetzlar, Germany) were examined, intraocular pressure was measured with a non-contact tonometer (NT 2000; Nidek Co./Japan), and ocular biometry was performed (LenStar 900; Haag Streit, Köniz, Switzerland). 7 , 17 – 21 …”