A new nationwide study has revealed that children diagnosed with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) may also be at greater risk for hearing loss, highlighting the interconnected challenges facing prematurely born infants.
Published in the International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, the study analyzed de-identified health records of nearly 6,000 US children from a national database, comparing those with ROP to a matched group without the condition. After adjusting for a wide range of risk factors – including gestational age, birth weight, oxygen therapy, and perinatal complications – the researchers found that children with ROP were still 42 percent more likely to have hearing loss than their healthy peers. The association was found to be even stronger for sensorineural hearing loss, which results from damage to the inner ear or auditory nerve.
Interestingly, the study found that this elevated risk did not depend on how severe the ROP was, nor whether it was treated with or without anti-VEGF injections. These findings suggest that the shared underlying vulnerabilities of premature infants – such as neurological underdevelopment or exposure to high oxygen levels – may simultaneously affect both vision and hearing, regardless of the clinical course of ROP itself.
The study’s large sample size and use of propensity score matching offer strong support for its conclusions, though the authors caution that retrospective design and limitations in medical coding may have introduced bias. Still, the results align with prior research suggesting that ROP could be a marker of broader neurodevelopmental risks, including auditory processing disorders.
Given the importance of early hearing intervention for speech and cognitive development, the authors recommend that children with ROP receive heightened monitoring for hearing issues even if their vision appears stable.
