A good study about early predictive biomarkers in severe retinopathy of prematurity

Abstract

Abstract Objective To explore the evaluation value of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and cytokines in predicting severe and therapeutic retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).MethodsPremature infants from January 2020 to January 2022 were enrolled in this single-center retrospective study. General characteristics, seven cytokines within 24 hours and NT-proBNP on the 1st, 3rd, 7th and 14th days after birth were collected. Evaluated these risk factors by using univariate Logistic regression and multivariable logistic regression. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to evaluate the prediction ability. The outcome measures were the occurrence of any stage ROP, severe ROP and therapeutic ROP.Results528 premature infants were involved, 21.4% premature infants (113/528) were diagnosed with ROP, 35.4% (40/113) were diagnosed with severe ROP, 65% (26/40) received intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor treatment. After adjusting confounding factors, NT-proBNP at day 7 of life (NT-proBNP7) and IL-6 still remained significantly associated with ROP (P < 0.05). For severe ROP, the cut off values for IL-6 and NT-ProBNP7 were respectively 16.28 pg/mL (AUC = 0.830) and 2553ng/L (AUC = 0.846). The AUC value for combining the two indices was 0.919. For therapeutic ROP, the cut off values for IL-6 and NT-ProBNP7 were respectively 18.08 pg/mL (AUC = 0.845) and 4699ng/L (AUC = 0.829). The AUC value for combining the two indices was 0.915.ConclusionsNT-proBNP 7 and IL-6 can be used as early biomarkers for severe and therapeutic ROP. More importantly, two indicators have significantly higher efficacy than individual indicators.