PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Petra P Larsen AU - Andreas Müller AU - Wolf A Lagrèze AU - Frank G Holz AU - Andreas Stahl AU - Tim U Krohne ED - , TI - Incidence of retinopathy of prematurity in Germany: evaluation of current screening criteria AID - 10.1136/archdischild-2020-319767 DP - 2020 Sep 27 TA - Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition PG - fetalneonatal-2020-319767 4099 - http://fn.bmj.com/content/early/2020/09/27/archdischild-2020-319767.short 4100 - http://fn.bmj.com/content/early/2020/09/27/archdischild-2020-319767.full AB - Objective To evaluate current screening criteria for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) by investigating the incidence of ROP requiring treatment in infants with gestational age (GA) ≥30 weeks or postmenstrual age (PMA) <32 weeks in Germany.Methods Three patient databases were analysed, that is, the German Quality Assurance Procedure in Neonatology (years 2011–2017; n=52 461 infants screened for ROP, 1505 infants treated for ROP), the German Retina.net ROP Registry (years 2011–2018; n=281 treated infants) and the ROP screening programme of two German university hospitals (years 2012–2016; n=837 screened infants).Results In the analysed cohorts, infants with GA ≥30 weeks represented 33.1%–38.5% of the screening populations but only 1.40%–1.42% of the cases requiring ROP treatment. In a cohort of 281 infants treated for ROP, all 4 infants with GA ≥30 weeks had additional risk factors for ROP including prolonged oxygen supplementation and/or significant comorbidities. Five infants (1.8%) were treated at 32 weeks PMA and none at PMA <32 weeks.Conclusions In the investigated cohorts, preterm infants with GA ≥30 weeks carried a very low or no risk for developing treatment-requiring ROP unless additional risk factors were present, and no treatment was performed earlier than 32 weeks PMA. These findings are of relevance for the ongoing re-evaluation of ROP screening criteria.