Review of Eye Injuries Associated With Dermatologic Laser Treatment

The eye is susceptible to damage during dermatologic laser treatments.

Discuss the anatomy of the eye related to these procedures, the principles of laser-eye interactions, and ocular injuries reported with dermatologic laser treatments.

PubMed and Embase searches were conducted to identify cases of eye injuries associated with dermatologic laser treatments.

One hundred nineteen cases of eye injury associated with dermatologic laser treatments were identified. Fifty-nine cases targeted the eyelid during resurfacing and caused ectropion, while 60 cases resulted from direct injury of ocular structures. In most of the cases of the latter, improper eye protection was used (44 of 60, 73%). In nearly all these cases, it was the patient who sustained a potentially avoidable ocular injury (52 of 60, 87%). Thirty-one patients had persistent ocular symptoms at follow-up (52%). The most common procedure in this context was laser hair removal of the face (35 of 60, 58%). Most of the cases developed injuries specific for the particular laser based on its wavelength and affinity to target certain ocular chromophores (59 of 60, 98%).

Most of the dermatologic laser-associated eye injury cases have occurred in the context of laser resurfacing or laser hair removal and are potentially preventable.