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Home Oxygen Administration and Retinopathy of Prematurity: Survey of 1988 Practices
DALE L. PHELPS, MD;
NANCY E. COLF
Division of Neonatology Department of Pediatrics, Box 651 University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry 601 Elmwood Ave Rochester, NY 14642
Am J Dis Child. 1990;144(2):141-142.
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Sir.—Premature infants are subjected to stringent invasive and noninvasive oxygen monitoring in the pursuit of the elusive "safe" path between hypoxic brain damage on the one hand and increased risks of blindness from retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) on the other. For the majority of infants, this period is relatively short. In some infants, however, chronic lung disease leads to such a prolonged oxygen requirement that home oxygen administration is considered. Hudak et al1 have recently reported a growth benefit to 30 infants receiving oxygen at home when their pulse oximetry was kept over 95% saturation. They also stressed avoidance of hyperoxia but did not relate this to the degree of retinal immaturity or ROP present in a particular infant.
The risk for severe ROP appears to be proportional to the degree of retinal immaturity, ie, the amount of avascular retina. It follows from this understanding that when the
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Footnotes
This research was supported in part by a private donation and by grant U01 EY06354 from the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.
A special thank you is extended to each of the neonatologists who took the time to complete and return the questionnaire and to our colleagues who offered their valuable criticism of the text.
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