Strabismus in Premature Infants in the First Year of Life

OBJECTIVES To present the 3- and 12-month strabismus data from 3030 premature infants with birth weights less than 1251 g enrolled in the Multicenter Trial of Cryotherapy for Retinopathy of Prematurity. DESIGN Data from the 3- and 12-month examinations conducted at 23 regional study centers were tabulated for all infants. The main outcome measure, ocular motility, was compared with baseline demographic variables and retinopathy of prematurity severity for the worse eye. Findings at 3 months were compared with the incidence of strabismus at 12 months. RESULTS At 3 months, 200 (6.6%) of the 3030 infants were strabismic. In the 2449 infants examined at both time points, 289 (11.8%) were found to have strabismus at 12 months. Retinopathy of prematurity was significant for strabismus at both 3 and 12 months (P