High serum creatinine in early life of preterm infants predicts the severe retinopathy of prematurity: a retrospective single-centre study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Hypoxia and anemia are among the risk factors for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). The kidneys areimportant organs that sense oxygen levels and regulate red blood cell synthesis via erythropoietinproduction. We investigated the contribution of abnormal renal function (reected by serum creatinine[SCr] levels) to severe ROP in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants. METHODS: In the present study, we enrolled 242 VLBW infants of gestational age (GA) ranging between 25 and 32weeks who were admitted at Soonchunhyang Cheonan University Hospital between Nov 2014 and Dec2019. The cut-off value for normal SCr for each GA group based was dened as 95th percentile of SCrbased on a reference chart developed in a previous study. Risk factors for ROP requiring treatment wereanalyzed using logistic regression. RESULTS: Of the 242 infants, 63 (26%) were high SCr group and 30 (12.4%) infants had ROP requiring treatment. GA(odds ratio 0.38, 95% condence interval 0.23–0.61) and high SCr group (4.68 [1.10–19.90]) wereindependent factors for ROP requiring treatment. CONCLUSIONS: In VLBW infants, high SCr within the rst 4 weeks after birth is one of the risk factors for ROP requiringtreatment.