A review of the medical records of 238 children younger than 16 years admitted with ocular injury to the University Hospital in Trondheim during a 10-years period was undertaken to provide information about the causes, circumstances and visual outcome of ocular trauma in young patients. Children with ocular injury represented 14% of all paediatric eye admissions. The majority were boys (77%). The frequency of injuries among boys increased markedly from the age of 8 years, while the frequency was almost the same among girls in all age groups. The most common cause of injury was projectiles (21.5%) followed by sticks, twigs and pencils (10.1%), falls (10.1%), bow and arrows and catapults (9.7%) and balls (8.8%). The most frequent diagnosis was contusion (43%). Perforating eye injuries amounted to 19%. Follow-up examination showed that 49% of children with eye injuries had some visual deficit, including eighteen children (8%) with visual acuity worse than 0.1. Because most of the eye injuries among children are preventable, more appropriate strategies for the prevention of these should be implemented.

No abstract

No abstract