Prolonged deployed hospital care in the management of military eye injuries

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Prolonged hospital care is described as deployed medical care, applied beyond doctrinal planning timelines and military medical planning envisages that in future conflicts, patients will have to be managed for up to five days without evacuation to their home country. We aimed to investigate the effect of prolonged hospital care on visual outcomes in the management of open and closed globe injures. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study in the setting of British military operations in Afghanistan. We included consecutive UK military patients with ocular trauma evacuated from Afghanistan between December 2005 and April 2013. We assessed outcome using best corrected visual acuity (VA) 6-12 months after injury. Results: All patients were male, with a mean age of 25. Outcomes adjusted for ocular trauma score (OTS) at presentation were similar to previous reports of military ocular trauma. The mean time to arrival at a centre with an ophthalmologist was 1.74 days. Both patients with penetrating open globe injuries and patients with hyphaema and an OTS of 3 or less displayed an association between worsening 6- 12 month VA and time between injury and repair or assessment by an ophthalmologist. Conclusion: Time to specialist ophthalmic care contributes to outcome after military open and closed globe injuries, supporting deployment of ophthalmologists on military operations.