Traumatic hyphema: clinical study of 149 cases

The natural course, related complications and factors affecting prognosis of traumatic hyphema in 149 Thai patients were reported. Male preponderance and high prevalence of patients younger than 15 years were noted in this study. Blunt ocular trauma was the most common type of eye injury (88.59%), with penetrating injury (7.38%) and missile (4.03%) being the next in order of decreasing frequency. Duration of injury was acute in 81.88 per cent, subacute in 12.08 per cent and chronic in 6.04 per cent. Complications from secondary glaucoma accounted for 24.16 per cent, whereas, corneal blood staining and rebleeding were 10.07 and 6.71 per cent respectively. Shorter duration of injury, good initial visual acuity and absence of complications were responsible for favorable visual prognosis. However, age, grade of the initial hyphema and surgical intervention were not demonstrated to have any influence on the eventual visual outcome.