Color Doppler imaging of the central retinal artery in premature infants undergoing examination for retinopathy of prematurity

Purpose: Recent attempts have been made to quantify blood flow velocity in the central retinal artery (CRA) of adults using color Doppler imaging (CDI ). Although retinal vascular abnormalities are the hallmark of severe retin opathy of prematurity (ROP), normal values have not been established for CR A blood flow velocity in premature infants. Methods: CDI of the CRA was suc cessfully performed on 43 eyes in 22 infants (postconceptional ages 32 to 3 9 weeks) before the infants underwent examination for ROP. Peak systolic ve locity (PSV) and end diastolic velocity were recorded from at least 1 eye o f each patient. Pourcelot's resistive index was then calculated for each ey e studied. Results: Mean PSV for patients with no ROP (n = 6) was 7.2 +/- 1 .5 cm/s, whereas those with any degree of ROP excluding plus disease (n = 9 ) had a mean PSV of 8.9 +/- 1.8 cm/s. Of the patients with ROP and plus dis ease (n = 7), the mean PSV was 7.0 +/- 1.6 cm/s. There were no statisticall y significant differences among these 3 groups (P = .08). Conclusions: CDI can be successfully performed on preterm infants and yields values lower th an those previously reported in healthy adult subjects. PSV in the CRA may be higher in subjects with ROP in the absence of plus disease; however furt her study is needed to determine whether these differences are significant.