Eye Injuries in Summer Olympic Sports - A Mini Review

Abstract

Eye sports injuries, despite lower incidence, possess great impact in athlete’s performance and might shutdown athletes from the competition. This article aims to review eye injuries published in indexed literature related to sports that will be presented at the Summer Olympics Games-Rio 2016. 1.1.Methods: A critical literature review of articles was performed. Study analysis was conducted using online databases-Pubmed and BVS-selecting case reports, series of cases and reviews related to eye injuries in sports of which were only selected information’s about the sports practiced on Olympic Summer Games-Rio 2016 with no language restriction, published in a twenty years period (1996 -2016). Other sports that were not in the list of the Olympic Summer Games-Rio 2016 as the modalities practiced only in Winter Olympic Games were excluded from the study. The keywords used were ‘athletic eye injuries’, ‘open globe trauma in sports’, ‘ocular trauma’, ‘ophthalmologic injuries’, ‘eye trauma’, ‘trauma in Olympic games’ and ‘eye injuries’. 1.2.Results: USA and England published most of the articles. Corneal abrasion/ulcer and conjunctival hemorrhage were the most frequent injuries reported. Boxing was responsible for the most devastating ocular trauma cases. 1.3.Conclusion: The review of indexed literature showed about 970 eyes with sports-related ocular traumas varying from mild to severe in accordance with the 39 sports practiced on the Olympic Summer Games in 2016. Ophthalmologist should be aware of most dangerous sports and type of lesion caused to better inform patients.