Pharmacotherapy and ROP: Going Back to the Basics.

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a leading cause of blindness in preterm infants around the world. Through the development of animal models and clinical trials our understanding of the pathophysiology of this disease and approach to therapy has evolved significantly since ROP was first described in the 1940s in the United States. The mainstay of treatment in ROP remains ablative laser therapy to the avascular retina but pharmacologic agents are being more and more commonly used with new targets for pharmacotherapy emerging. This paper summarizes our current understanding of the pathophysiology of ROP based on the data gleaned from animal models and discusses current approaches to pharmacotherapy.