Purpose-To report retinal findings for healthy newborn infants imaged with hand held Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography (SD-OCT).
Design-Prospective observational case series.Methods-Thirty-nine full term newborn infants had dilated retinal examinations by indirect ophthalmoscopy and retinal imaging by handheld SD-OCT, without sedation, at the Duke Birthing Center.Results-Of the 39 infants imaged, 44% (17/39) were male. Race/ethnicity composition was 56% white, 38% black, 3% Asian, and 3% Hispanic. Median gestational age was 39 weeks (range 36 to 41). Six of the 39 infants (15%) had bilateral subfoveal fluid on SD-OCT not seen by indirect ophthalmoscopy. Eight infants (21%) had retinal hemorrhages noted on dilated retinal examination, 1 of which had subretinal fluid on SD-OCT. Subretinal fluid was noted on follow up examination to have resolved on SD-OCT 1 to 4 months later. Infants with bilateral subretinal fluid had an older gestational age compared to infants without subretinal fluid (median 40.4 vs. 39.1 weeks, respectively, P=0.03) and were more likely to have had mothers with diabetes (2/6 vs. 0/33, respectively, P=0.02). Vaginal versus C-section delivery was not significantly different between the two groups.Conclusions-Some healthy full term infants have bilateral subfoveal fluid not obvious on dilated retinal examination. This fluid resolves within several months. The visual significance of this finding is unknown, but clinicians should be aware it is common when evaluating newborn infants for retinal pathology using SD-OCT.