Objective To investigate the incidence of retinopathy of prematuri ty (ROP) in the area of Shanghai, and to provide the preliminary data for the ev aluation of present criteria for ROP screening. Methods Record s of 289 prematur e infants who had undergone ROP screening from the four NICU in Shanghai between February 2004 and January 2005 were analyzed. Screening criteria included prete rm infants or low birth weight (LBW) infants with BW of 2000g or less. The first examination starts at 4 to 6 weeks chronologic age or 32 weeks post conceptual age. Results In the 289 screened infants, 19 had developed acu te ROP. There we re 3 threshold ROP, 7 prethreshold ROP and 9 developed ROP less than prethreshol d. The incidence of ROP was 6.6%. According to the British recommended guideline s（BWle;1500 g or GAle;31 weeks）, only 119 out of 289 needed screening and one ca se of stage 1 ROP was missed; the incidence of ROP was 15.1% (18/119). When lowered sc reening criteria to the American guidelines（BWle;1500g or GAle;28 weeks）, t here were only 83 infants needed screening, and we missed 2 stage 1 and 1 prethreshold ROP and the incidence of ROP was 19.3% (16/83). Conclusions The i ncidence of ROP i s 6.6% according to our study. It is lower than other reports and it has somethi ng to do with our present screening guideline. Further epidemiological data are needed to modify the guideline accordingly.