Interestingly, however, we were unable to establish an association between duration of hyperglycemia and severe (Stage III) ROP. Utilizing two different multiple logistic regression models, duration of hyperglycemia was found to not be associated with the development of severe (Stage III) ROP. This is in contrast to Garg et al’s study, where hyperglycemia, as defined by highest measured blood glucose in the first month of life, was found to be associated with the development of Stage III or IV ROP, although they specifically chose to study the impact of glucose on Stages III and IV and included infants with Stage I in the control group of their case–control study. Similar to our results, they also demonstrated a significantly higher number of days with glucose measurements of > 150 mg/ dl among patients with ROP (8.4 days vs. 5.3 days, p = 0.028), but did not include duration of hyperglycemia in multivariable analysis [14].
In adults, hyperglycemia has been shown to play a significant role in the development of proliferative diabetic retinopathy [19]. Like ROP, proliferative diabetic retinopathy is characterized by the development of new blood vessels in the retina that can extend into the vitreous of the eye. Additionally, similar to severe ROP, retinal detachment can occur due to the fibrous contractile tissue that is formed [20].