Retinopathy of prematurity, familial exudative vitreoretinopathy and Coats disease are the most common neonates and infants retinal vascular diseases, which may lead to severe visual damage because of either tractional retinal detachment caused by the proliferation of pathogenic neovascularization, or exudative retinal detachment due to the extremely leakage from abnormal retinal vessels. Classic treatment is retinal laser photocoagulation which could destroy these abnormal vessels or reduce non vascular areas to diminish the growth of new vessels, however the side effects induced by laser it self such as visual field damage, hemorrhage, retinal tear, fail to control the progression of the disease make the laser treatment hard to improve the vision of these young patients. Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) agents have been widely applied in various adult retinal and choroidal vascular diseases, they are even possible to replace the pan retinal photocoagulation in proliferative diabetic retinopathy, while there are still many unsolved problems in the applying in neonates and infants retinal vascular diseases, like dosage, timing, retreatment and systemic side effects. We should realize the importance of selecting the laser photocoagulation and anti-VEGF for neonates and infants retinal vascular diseases.

Citation： Lu Fang. Appropriate understanding the application of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor agents and laser photocoagulation for infants retinal vascular diseases. Chinese Journal of Ocular Fundus Diseases, 2018, 34(5): 429-431. doi: 10.3760/cma.j.issn.1005-1015.2018.05.003 Copy