title: Strabismus in very low birth weight and/or very preterm children: discrepancy between age of onset and start of treatment.
abstract: Very low birth weight (VLBW; less than 1500 g) and/or very preterm children are at risk for strabismus. However, the age of onset of strabismus is still unknown. The present study reports on the frequency of strabismus in 450 5-year-old children born with a birth weight of less than 1500 g and/or with a gestational age below 32 weeks. The age at which strabismus was initially diagnosed was determined retrospectively. At 5 years of age 65 of the at-risk children (14.4%) presented with strabismus. Fifteen of them (3%) had at that age not been referred to or treated by an ophthalmologist. At 3 years of age only 28 strabismic children were being treated; 7 at-risk children (2%) had been treated for strabismus before the end of the 1st year. These results were compared to those from a second study in which eye alignment was longitudinally examined in 194 VLBW children from 6 weeks until 12 months of (corrected) age and additionally in 65 of these children at the age of 2.5 years. At a first glance, the frequency of strabismus in the longitudinal study seemed rather stable during the first 2.5 years of life, with values varying between 14% and 18%. However, only a small percentage of misalignments which were noted at 6 weeks of age persisted until 2.5 years. On the other hand, if children had a misalignment at 9 months, strabismus was still present when they were reexamined at 1 and at 2.5 years of age.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology I, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Pott
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Van Hof-van Duin
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Heersema
authors.forename: W P
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: Fetter
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Schreuder
authors.forename: S P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Verloove-Vanhorick
mesh_terms: D017668:Age of Onset; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007230:Infant, Low Birth Weight; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013285:Strabismus / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000628:therapy; D015351:Vision Screening