[Eye injuries in childhood]

The purpose of this study was to analyze the epidemiological, damage and preventative aspects of the pediatric ocular injuries treated during the last five years in our hospital.

We have revised all clinical histories of ocular injuries in the Emergency Services of the Asturias Central Hospital from January 1992 to December 1996. Two hundred fifty-seven cases were reviewed and the following parameters were studied: age, sex, kind of injury, causes and places where they originated, hospitalization or no, and functional sequeale.

Eighty percent of the cases were male (206 patients). Most, 85.6% (220 cases) did not require hospital attention, while hospitalization was necessary in 14.4% (37 cases). Concerning the latter, 73% (27 cases) were in the hospital less than 7 days, while the other 27% (10 cases) were hospitalized from 8 to 14 days. As for the cause of and the location where the injuries took place, our results were as follows: school-home 33%, playtime-leisure 32%, sports accidents 12%, assaults 10%, traffic accidents 3% and unknown causes 10%. Minor injuries tend to imply the full restitution of sight (a large percentage were revised by their own ophthalmologist). Serious injuries caused the following functional losses: loss of eyeball in 2 cases (traffic accident), monolateral blindness in 2 cases serious amblyopia in 10 cases, and moderate amblyopia in 6 cases.

Males suffer injuries 4 times more frequently than females and these are very infrequent before the age of 3 years. Traffic accident injuries are rare in comparison to in adulthood. Important immediate visual sequale were seen in 7.8% of the cases, although these may also appear later in cases that at first present good function during the acute phase.