Abstract
Purpose
Premature birth, race, and sex are contributing risk factors for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and have long-term impact on children’s retinal structure. Few studies investigate impact of race and sex on macular structure in children born preterm. This study compared foveal structure in preterm and full-term children.
Methods
Children aged 4–18 years were enrolled into three groups: (1) ROP-risk group (n = 81), born at < 32 weeks gestational age with and without history of ROP; (2) preterm group (n = 46), born at 32–36 weeks gestational age; and (3) control group (n = 68) with full-term birth. Using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography volume-scan images, foveal structure within 1-mm and 3-mm early treatment diabetic retinopathy study circular grid was measured and segmented. Total inner and outer retina thickness of the right eye was compared among the three groups.
Results
The mean total foveal thickness (in microns) was 287 ± 26 for the ROP-risk group, 276 ± 19 for the preterm group, and 263 ± 20 for the control group (F = 26, p < 0.001). Foveal thickness of the ROP-risk group was significantly higher than that of the preterm group and the control group (all p < 0.05). Foveal thickness was thinner in black children than in white children and thinner in females than in males (all p < 0.001). A similar disparity in race and sex was found in the thickness of the inner and outer layers.
Conclusions
The fovea was significantly thicker in the ROP-risk group than the control group. Foveal thickness decreases with increased gestational age. Race and sex are significant factors in foveal structure in children.
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Data availability
Available upon request from the corresponding author.
Code availability
Not applicable.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Kim Eissmann for editing the text and thank the reviewers for their invaluable critiques and suggestions to improve the manuscript.
Funding
This work is supported by grants from the National Eye Institute (EY026664), the Pennsylvania Lions Sight Conservation and Eye Research Foundation Grant and by an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) under grant number U54-GM104941 and an award number P20GM13446 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health.
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Jing Jin made substantial contributions to the conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, resources, data curation, writing of the original draft, reviewing and editing, visualization, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition.
Amanda Friess, Dorothy Hendricks, Sharon Lehman, Jonathan Salvin, and Julia E Reid made substantial contributions to data curation, review and editing of the manuscript, and visualization.
Jingyun Wang made substantial contributions to the conceptualization, methodology, software, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing of the original draft, reviewing and editing, visualization, and project administration.
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This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Nemours Office of Human Subject Protection and conformed to the requirements of the United States Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act.
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Dr. Amanda Friess and Dr. Jonathan Salvin have left Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children.
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Jin, J., Friess, A., Hendricks, D. et al. Effect of gestational age at birth, sex, and race on foveal structure in children. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol 259, 3137–3148 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-021-05191-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-021-05191-3