Penetrating eye injuries in pediatric population: An epidemiological study and visual outcome

Abstract

Introduction: Penetrating eye injury is an important cause of visual impairment in pediatric population.Aims and Objectives: To study the epidemiology and visual outcome of penetrating eye injuries in pediatric population presented to Lumbini Eye Institute, the tertiary eye hospital of western Nepal.Materials and Methods: This retrospective study was conducted at the Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, Lumbini Eye Institute over a period of one year from June 2014 to May 2015. All patients of penetrating eye injuries up to the age of 15 years were included in the study. The demographics of the patient, cause and duration of injury were recorded. The presenting and final best corrected visual acuity, anterior and posterior segment findings were recorded in specially designed proforma.Results: A total number of 127 children (127 eyes) presented with penetrating eye injuries during a year. The incidence of penetrating eye injury in one year was 127 out of 12927 new patients. Minimum age was 11 months, while the maximum age was 15 years with mean of 7.29 years (SD= ±3.49). Male and female patients were 99 (78%) and 28 (22%) respectively. Involvement of right eye was seen in 69 cases (54.33%) and left eye 58 (45.67%). The most common cause of injury was wooden stick in 55 cases (43.31%) followed by iron wire 12 (9.45%) and the stone 11 (8.66%). Corneal laceration was found in 102 cases (80.31%), scleral laceration in 10 (7.87%) and corneo-scleral laceration in 15 (11.81%). Seventy three percent patients were blind at the time of presentation whereas at discharge 37.63% were blind and 11.43% of patients had visual acuity better than 6/18 at presentation whereas 35.48% had visual acuity better than 6/18 after treatment.Conclusion: Penetrating eye injury is one of the common causes attending Pediatric Ophthalmology Department. Penetrating eye injury is common in male and majority of trauma is caused by wooden stick. The awareness of ocular trauma and its consequences should be increased to reduce incidence of childhood blindness.Asian Journal of Medical Sciences Vol.7(4) 2016 84-87

Injuries in Young Children: A Retrospective Study of Children 00136 Presenting to a Tertiary Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa

“…Most eye injuries were unilateral, with right eye involvement being higher 73 (50.7%) than left eye involvement 67 (46.5), similar to right eye predominance found in study in Nepal 54.33% [23]. This differs from the findings of the study in Finland in which 105 (52%) injuries involved the left eye, 93 (46%) affected the right eye and 4 (2%) were bilateral [14].…”

Developing pediatric eye care program in Nepal: Insurmountable Mountains can be reduced to mole hills. The Orbis experience in Nepal.

“…Manuscripts on children's eye health in Nepal were published in PubMed indexed journals during and after the project. [10,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] The hospital teams had publications on low vison services for children [14][15][16][17], refractive errors [18,19] and ocular injuries in children [21,22]. The publications of children's eye health were nil before the project.…”

“…Pediatric ophthalmology had developed as a sub-specialty and fellowship training was started in three hospitals and publications had come out from the research conducted by them. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] The hospitals had publications on low vision services for children, refractive errors and ocular injuries in children. [14-17, 18, 19, 21, 22] They tracked outcomes of pediatric cataract, strabismus and dacrocystorhinostomy surgeries.…”

Developing pediatric eye care program in Nepal: Insurmountable Mountains can be reduced to mole hills. The Orbis experience in Nepal

“…Manuscripts on children's eye health in Nepal were published in pubmed indexed journals. [10,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] The hospital teams had publications on low vison services for children [14][15][16][17], refractive errors [18,19] and ocular injuries in children [21,22].…”