The aim of this retrospective study was to identify incidence rate of retinopathy (ROP) in VLBW infants in perinatology center and to describe factors related to grade III-V ROP among those infants. Methods: Authors studied retrospectively 333 infants with birth weight less than 1500 g hospitalized at NICU, Department of Pediatrics of Teaching Hospital in Hradec Králové (Czech Republic) between 1997 and 2001. Results: ROP grade III-V was detected in 35 infants (10.5 %) during hospitalization, on 20 of them (58.8 %) cryoretinopexy was performed. On discharge ROP grade III-V was identified in 20 infants (6 %). High grades of ROP were associated with amount of blood transfused, number of transfusions more than two and oxygen dependency longer than 5 days.Authors did not find association with transfusion velocity or oxygen concentrations. Conclusions: Results correspond to those of recently published studies. However, before the overall outcome of VLBW infants can be evaluated, the results of a long-term follow-up should be taken into consideration.

        Key words: retinopathy of prematurity, very low birth weight infants (VLBW)