Clinical characteristics of 679 cases from an Ophthalmologic Emergency Department at night

Abstract

Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics of patients in the Ophthalmologic Emergency Department (OED) at night. Methods The records of 679 patients attending to the OED of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University at night (from 5: 30 p. m. to 8: 00 a. m. of the next morning) were collected from Aug. 2012 to Jul.2013. The gender, age, career, visiting time, initial diagnosis, emergency treatment and visual outcome were analyzed. Results In this study, for the patients younger than 60 years old, there were more male patients than female. For the patients more than 60 years old, there were more female patients than the male. Peasants(33.3%) and workers(29.9%) accounted for the majority proportion of the patients, followed by preschool children(17.5%) and students(15.0%). The most common diseases in OED were ocular trauma(83.9%), ocular surface inflammation(13.4%) and acute primary angle closure glaucoma(PACG, 2.2%). There was significant difference between male and female(χ2=41.943, P=0.000) in those three types of diseases. The proportion of patient admitted to the OED were 54.8%, 36.1%, 9.1% in the period of 22: 00-03: 00 o'clock, 17: 30-22: 00 o'clock and 03: 00-08: 00 o'clock, respectively. Among the 679 cases, 563 cases(82.9%) required hospital admission, 508 eyes of 487 cases (63.6%) underwent emergent operations, in which 41 eyes of 33 cases (5.1%) were treated by multiple combined operations. The final best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) of less than 0.05 occurred in 38 eyes (6.0%), 0.05~0.25 in 176 eyes (27.6%), and ≥0.3 in 423 eyes (66.4%). Conclusion Ocular trauma, ocular surface inflammation, and acute PACG are the three main diseases in OED from 17: 30 to 08: 00 of the next day. The largest number of patients visiting OED was in the period of 22: 00~03: 00 o'clock. Most of the patients need emergent surgeries. Key words: Ophthalmologic emergency, night; Characteristics, clinical; Trauma, ocular