Abstract
Introduction: Surgical fires are rare in ophthalmic surgery. Occurrence poses disastrous risks on the eye and the patient. Mascara can play a role in the occurrence of flash fires in the vicinity of surgical fields by acting as a fuel source. Purpose: We report a case of thermal burn of eye lashes, eyelid skin and eye brow hair in a patient who was wearing mascara while cautery was applied to her eyelid lesion after excision. Results: Mascara had caused a spark fire when applying cautery after eyelid lesion excision in a young patient. Conclusion: Surgeons as well as the entire ophthalmic care team should be aware of this incident to try to minimize the risk of thermal injury by working in a make-up free ophthalmic field.
Highlights
Surgical fires are rare in ophthalmic surgery
We describe a case of surgical flash fire causing thermal burn of eye lashes, eyelid skin and eye brow hair in a patient who had some residual mascara on her lashes while cautery was applied for an eyelid lesion after excision in clinical setting and in the absence of oxygen rich environment
We found no literature suggesting any correlation between eye make-up mascara and the use of cautery in ophthalmological practice, one article reported a thermal burn in a routine pterygium excision operation which was attributed to the high oxygen concentration in ophthalmic surgical vicinity [1,7]
Summary
Surgical fires are rare in ophthalmic surgery. Occurrence poses disastrous risks on the eye and the patient. Results: Mascara had caused a spark fire when applying cautery after eyelid lesion excision in a young patient. The factors that may initiate these fires are many and include alcohol based surgical prep solutions, electrosurgical equipment, and flammable drapes [2,3,4,6,10].
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