Visual field extent at 6 years of age in children who had high-risk prethreshold retinopathy of prematurity.

OBJECTIVE

To compare monocular visual field extent at 6 years of age in eyes with high-risk prethreshold retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) randomized to early treatment (ET) with eyes that underwent conventional management (CM) and were treated at threshold or regressed without treatment.

METHODS

Subjects were 370 surviving study participants who developed high-risk prethreshold ROP and were enrolled in the Early Treatment for Retinopathy of Prematurity Study between October 1, 2000, and September 30, 2002. When the participants were 6 years of age, vision testers unaware of ROP status used white-sphere kinetic perimetry to measure visual field extent along the superotemporal, inferotemporal, inferonasal, and superonasal meridians.

RESULTS

The extent of the visual field was 0.1° to 3.7° larger in ET eyes when blind eyes were assigned a score of 0°. When data were examined from eyes of participants with 1 sighted ET eye and 1 sighted CM eye, ET eyes showed a small (1.3°-3.1°) reduction, which was statistically significant only along the superonasal meridian (P = .005). In bilaterally sighted children, visual field extent was not significantly reduced for high-risk type 1 ET eyes (-0.9° to 1.8°). However, in ET eyes with high-risk type 2 disease, visual field extent was significantly smaller compared with that of CM eyes (3.6°-8.7° superonasal field [P = .003]; inferonasal field [P < .001]).

CONCLUSION

Early treatment preserves peripheral vision, with only a small reduction of visual field extent.

APPLICATION TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Early treatment for high-risk prethreshold ROP does not adversely affect visual field extent clinically.