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.