[Ophthalmologic prevention in premature infants].

Forty-four of the 262 pupils at the school for blind and visually handicapped children in Nuremberg, i.e., 17%, suffer from sequelae of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP); this condition is currently top of the list of causes of blindness. The risk factors involved were identified by analyzing 294 histories of premature children born between 1981 und 1984. In the case of 16 children, ophthalmoscopic criteria were taken from the 1984 international classification. The data of the children with ROP, at birth and at the time when ROP developed, were recorded on a prognosis card, in each case between the child's absolute age (abscissa) and birthweight in g (ordinate). In this way it was possible to read off the critical phase of retinal development for each newly examined child. This card facilitates monitoring, the provision of forensic evidence, the timing of ophthalmoscopy during critical phases of retinal development, and may also enable further relationships to be detected.