Orbital injuries in trauma patients: Prevalence and outcome

Abstract

Purpose: Eye injuries in patients with multiple trauma are overlooked or missed as special attention is primarily given to their life-threatening injuries. The aim of this study is to present the incidence of eye injuries in polytrauma patients and give the insight of their complexity and outcome. Patients and methods: All polytrauma patients admitted to our institution during the period 1991—2001 were considered eligible to participate in this study. Inclusion criteria were multiple trauma (ISS > 16) and presence of eye and/or orbital injury. Exclusion criteria included early transfer of patients to other centers and loss of patients’ to follow-up. The records of patients who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were retrospectively reviewed and specific characteristics were documented including age, sex, mechanism of injury, type of eye injury, type of ophthalmic surgical interventions and outcome. Results: In total out of 2985 polytrauma patients 222 (7.5%) had sustained eye and orbital injuries forming the study group. The records of 181 (31 females) patients were available at the final follow up. The mean age was 33 years (range 3—84). The most common causes of eye injuries were road traffic accidents (56%), falls from heights (28%), assaults (9%) and work related accidents (4%). The most frequently encountered types of eye injury were orbital wall fractures (61%), periorbital swelling or hematoma (46%), sub-conjunctival hemorrhage (23%), periorbital lacerations (22%), optic o ( w p l Abstracts