Title

Anti-VEGF versus laser photocoagulation for ROP treatment

Authors

Sanskriti Ukey^1,*, Shivam Pandey², Anjali Singh³, Anamika Dwivedi⁴ & Sachin Parmar⁵

Affiliation

¹Department of Ophthalmology, NandKumar Singh Chauhan Medical college Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, India; ²Department of Ophthalmology, N. S. C. B. Medical College, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India; ³Department of Ophthalmology, Chhindwara Institute of Medical Sciences and attached District Hospital, Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh, India; ⁴Department of Ophthalmology, Shyam Shah Medical College, Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, India; ⁵Department of Community Medicine, V.K.S. Government Medical College, Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Sanskriti Ukey - E-mail: sanskritiukey97@gmail.com

Shivam Pandey - E-mail: shivampandey294@gmail.com

 Anjali Singh - E-mail: anjalibitiya07@gmail.com

 Anamika Dwivedi - E-mail: anamikapgi@gmail.com

Sachin Parmar - E-mail: dr.sachinparmar@gmail.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received February 1, 2026; Revised February 28, 2026; Accepted February 28, 2026, Published February 28, 2026

Abstract

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a vascular disease of the developing retina and a key, but mostly avoidable, cause of blindness in infants (especially preterm and very low birth weight infants). Hence in this prospective comparative cohort study of 1188 screened infants, 77 infants needed treatment; 67of them received intravitreal anti-VEGF and 10 received laser photocoagulation. Intravitreal anti-VEGF has shown anatomical regression in 96.82 of treated eyes; of which 3.17% required auxiliary laser and primary laser anatomical success was 100% but ablate the peripheral retina more and theoretically presents a greater risk of myopic shift. Aggressive posterior ROP (APROP) which was observed in 5.5 percent of the cohort responded to anti -VEGF in most cases, although isolated but serious complications were identified including cataract and retinal detachment, which demonstrates the importance of careful long-term follow-up. Thus Anti-VEGF was also useful in Type 1 ROP, but the current study also makes progress in demonstrating in a clinical setting that anti-VEGF can yield high regression with low adjunctive laser and superior peripheral retinal sparing, as opposed to laser which has a little higher one-time anatvi-success, indicating that a customized, zone- and stage-based, risk-benefit-driven decision on which therapy to use in any infant is possible.

Keywords

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), anti-VEGF therapy, laser photocoagulation

Citation

Ukey et al. Bioinformation 22(2): 1274-1279 (2026)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.