Alan Mulvihill

Background/objectives: To examine prevalence of failed visual assessment at 8–10 years in children born to methadone-maintained opioid dependent (MMOD) mothers and relate this to known in utero substance exposure. Subjects/methods: Follow up of observational cohort study of methadone-exposed and comparison children matched for birthweight, gestation and postcode of residence at birth. Participants were 144 children (98 exposed, 46 comparison). Prenatal drug exposure was previously established via comprehensive maternal and neonatal toxicology. Children were invited to attend for visual assessment and casenotes were reviewed. Presence of acuity poorer than 0.2 logMAR, strabismus, nystagmus and/or impaired stereovision constituted a ‘fail’. Fail rates were compared between methadone-exposed and comparison children after adjusting for known confounding variables. Results: 33 children attended in person: data were also derived from casenote review for all children. After controlling for maternal reported tobacco use, methadone-exposed children were more likely to have a visual ‘fail’ outcome, adjusted odds ratio 2.6, 95% CI 1.1–6.2; adjusted relative risk 1.8 (95% CI 1.1–3.4). Visual ‘fail’ outcome rates did not differ between methadone-exposed children who had (n = 47) or had not (n = 51) received pharmacological treatment for neonatal abstinence/opioid withdrawal syndrome (NAS/NOWS); fail rate 62% vs 53% (95% CI of difference—11–27%). Conclusions: Children born to MMOD mothers are almost twice as likely as unexposed peers to have significant visual abnormalities at primary school age. Prenatal methadone exposure should be considered in the differential diagnosis of nystagmus. Findings support visual assessment prior to school entry for children with any history of prenatal opioid exposure. Trial registration: The study was prospectively registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03603301), https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03603301.

Pneumatic retinopexy (PR) is a technique for repairing certain retinal detachments which is easier to perform than conventional sceral buckling (SB) surgery but has comparable results. We performed a prospective, randomised, controlled trial to determine for ourselves whether PR is a safe and acceptable procedure. Twenty patients presenting consecutively with retinal detachments which fulfilled the selection criteria were randomised to have their detachments repaired by either PR or SB, ten patients in each group. The suitable patients had a single retinal break or small group of breaks of not greater than one clock hour in size, situated within the superior eight clock hours of retina. Patients with significant proliferative vitreoretinopathy or other fundus disorders were excluded. All patients in the PR group had local anaesthesia while all those in the SB group had general anaesthesia. Successful reattachment of the retina was achieved with one or more procedures in 90 percent of the PR group and in 100 percent of the SB group. We feel that narrowing the selection criteria for PR may further improve the success rate.