Vitreous Findings by Handheld Spectral-Domain OCT Correlate with Retinopathy of Prematurity Severity

To evaluate the association between retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and vitreous findings in premature infants detected by handheld spectral-domain (SD) OCT. Prospective, observational cohort study. Consecutive sample of 92 premature infants requiring ROP screening at 2 academic neonatal intensive care units between July 2015 and March 2018. Infants underwent handheld SD OCT at the time of routine ROP examinations. Two masked, trained graders analyzed right-eye vitreoretinal findings, including semiautomated quantification of punctate hyperreflective vitreous opacities within 5 foveal or parafoveal B-scans (vitreous opacity ratio). Excluding posttreatment data, vitreous findings were compared with clinical ROP diagnoses. Agreement between image graders for all vitreoretinal findings was 91% (κ = 0.86; 95% confidence interval, 0.82–0.90; P < 0.001). Among 92 infants undergoing 280 imaging sessions (52% male; mean gestational age, 28.3 ± 2.8 weeks; mean birthweight, 1014.5 ± 285.0 g), 36 of 92 (39%) demonstrated ROP. Punctate hyperreflective vitreous opacities were identified in 61 of 92 infants (66%). The presence of punctate hyperreflective vitreous opacities at least once was associated with a diagnosis of ROP (62% vs. 29% without opacities; P = 0.003), maximum ROP stage (P = 0.001), preplus or plus disease (24% vs. 5%; P = 0.005), and type 1 disease (14% vs. 2%; P = 0.03). Among 29 infants (45 imaging sessions) with right-eye punctate hyperreflective vitreous opacities, the vitreous opacity ratio from 2 graders (F1 score, 0.82 ± 0.36; Dice coefficient, 0.97 ± 0.04) correlated with ROP stage (P = 0.02). Tractional vitreous bands on imaging correlated with plus disease status (29% vs. 5% without bands; P = 0.05). Punctate hyperreflective vitreous opacities and tractional vitreous bands predict the presence and severity of ROP. Further studies should explore handheld OCT as a noninvasive ROP screening tool.