Eye injuries in children

We report a retrospective study of children's eye injuries treated during 1977 at Helsinki University Eye Hospital. There were 110 cases representing 34.5% of all eye injuries and 3% of all patients treated in 1977; 81.8% were boys and 18.2% girls. Half of the injuries were caused by another child, one-third were self-inflicted, and the rest were other accidents. The risk of eye injury in girls was low and stable at all ages, but in boys the risk grew markedly at the age of 8 years. The commonest cause of injury was a thrown missile. Other important causes were shots, hits, and sports accidents. Two-thirds of the injuries were concussions. The proportion of perforation was 8.9%, which is a much lower figure than in earlier reports, suggesting that the injuries have become milder. Some kind of complication was seen in 16% of concussions. No secondary bleeding was found among them. Permanent impairment of vision was seen in 2 cases: one had a visual acuity of 0.1 because of traumatic cataract and the other 0.6 because of corneal scars. Although the number of perforations was too low for statistical analysis, the final result in this group suggests that the prognosis of perforating eye injury is still as bad as it was during the 1950s.