Retrospective and Comprehensive Evaluation of Posttraumatic Enophthalmos after Intraorbital Fat Injection

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmology
• Plastic Surgery
• Regenerative Medicine

Background:

• Post-traumatic enophthalmos (PE) involves a posteriorly displaced eyeball, deep superior sulcus, and asymmetry.
• Current treatments for PE have limitations including patient heterogeneity and non-quantitative assessments.
• Intraorbital autologous fat injection is a potential treatment for PE.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantitatively assess the efficacy of intraorbital autologous fat injection in treating both enophthalmos and sunken upper eyelids in a homogeneous PE patient group.
• To evaluate patient satisfaction and record complications associated with the procedure.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of 43 PE eyes post-autologous fat injection.
• Quantitative assessment of enophthalmos using bilateral enophthalmos value difference (BEVD).
• Assessment of sunken upper eyelids using structural similarity index measure (SSIM) and patient satisfaction surveys.

Main Results:

• Significant improvement in BEVD from 3.8 ± 1.9 mm to 1.4 ± 1.2 mm (P < 0.001).
• Significant improvement in SSIM from 0.714 ± 0.119 to 0.803 ± 0.063 (P = 0.003) for sunken upper eyelids.
• High patient satisfaction rate of 83.7% and no severe complications observed.

Conclusions:

• Intraorbital autologous fat injection demonstrates favorable outcomes for both enophthalmos and sunken upper eyelids in PE patients.
• The procedure shows promising applicability with significant quantitative improvements and high patient satisfaction.
• The study supports autologous fat injection as an effective treatment option for post-traumatic enophthalmos.