This brief report describes the incidence and characteristics of ocular abnormalities in healthy term newborn infants (HTNI) in 5,000 consecutive eye examinations from a database of 32,000 infants from 17 hospitals in São Paulo, Brazil. Imaging consisted of five views of the retina (optic nerve center, superior, inferior, nasal, temporal) with 130° wide-angle lens and one view of the anterior segment in each eye. These images were curated on four separate occasions for the presence or absence of ocular abnormality by a pediatric retina specialist. All images were obtained within 72 hours of birth. A total of 59,792 images were curated: Right Eye Normal (21,473 images), Left Eye Normal (21,983 images), Right Eye Abnormal (8,397 images), Left Eye Abnormal (7,939 images). An ocular abnormality appeared in 37.7% of patients; 4.88% showed a referral-warranted pathology. Based on these data, it is not unreasonable to consider instituting universal newborn eye screening in HTNI.
Scherm et al. (Tue,) studied this question.