OBJECTIVES: Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) is an abnormal retinal neuronal and vascular development in preterm infants, that can lead to visual impairment or blindness. To our knowledge there has been no recent literature review focusing on the health economic aspects of ROP, therefore the objective of this research was to conduct a targeted review of the literature to identify articles on the health economics of ROP, to support future health economic modelling.

METHODS: A targeted literature search was conducted in PubMed Medline, EMBASE, the Cochrane Database, EconLit, PROSPERO, and the CRD Database. The search was limited to English language papers. Due to the overlap of the coverage of the databases, search results were de-duplicated first, followed by title and abstract screening. Articles deemed relevant were analyzed in full text. The essential pieces of information were gathered from studies included in the full-text review, and were compared via tables in a structured way.

RESULTS: A total of 117 titles and abstracts were reviewed from the databases, of which 24 were removed during de-duplication, and after screening titles and abstracts, an additional 83 were excluded. Finally, 10 full-text papers were reviewed, of which 9 articles were included in the qualitative synthesis. Results of the review include that the 8 out of 9 studies used decision tree modelling, and that all models that were built to support cost-utility analyses (7 out of 9) extrapolated costs and benefits over a lifetime horizon. Seven of the nine articles assessed monocular and bilateral ROP separately.

CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results, decision tree modelling is a widely accepted methodology in the case of ROP, as well as choosing a lifetime horizon. These, together with other findings of the review, can be potentially used to guide the construction of health economic models to assess the cost-effectiveness of ROP.