Huseyin Yetik
Istanbul University, Turkey
Title: Retinopathy of Prematurity - What’s new about the pathogenesis and treatment?
Biography
Biography: Huseyin Yetik
Abstract
Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a leading cause of childhood blindness in developing and developed countries. CRYO-ROP (Cryotherapy for ROP) and ETROP (Early Treatment of ROP) studies demonstrated various successful outcomes after peripheral thermoablation (cryo/laser) of avascular retina. Cryo-ablation was successful in 75% of the cases in the CRYO-ROP Study. After the cryo era, even with high success rates of up to 98% depending upon the severity of the disease, laser was not effective, particularly in zone I and aggressive posterior ROP (APROP) cases. Research data demonstrated the role of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in the pathogenesis of ROP and anti-VEGF treatments were developed as another therapeutic option. It seems that anti-VEGF treatment is about to become the gold standard in ROP management. Despite an ongoing debate about the possible systemic adverse effects, clinical practice of intravitreal anti-VEGF (bevacizumab) injection demonstrated a better systemic clinical course in all premature babies without any exception besides dramatically successful results for ROP. Those results were able to give some clue about a possible one pathogenic mechanism for all morbidities including intracranial hemorrhage and associated cerebral complications, bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and ROP. Details of this possible pathogenesis will be discussed in this lecture.