Sripurna Ghosh1 , Soumyadeep Majumdar2
BACKGROUND Ocular trauma has been one of the notorious causes of monocular blindness and visual disability amongst children worldwide. In a booming populous country like India with a high birth rate, children often remain unguarded in many situations. Epidemiological factors leading to such injuries have often been implicated as common familiar objects having unexpected adverse consequences mostly due to faulty handling or lack of caring attitude. METHODS All patients below 14 yrs., with a history of ocular trauma and without any ocular co-morbidities admitted to the Department of Ophthalmology, North Bengal Medical College, during the study period of one year were grouped as per age and clinical diagnosis as per BETTS classification system. Management was done as per standard treatment protocols. Data was reviewed using SPSS version 20 software and outcomes were systematically assembled. Patients were followed up for 6 months on an outpatient basis after discharge. RESULTS Our study revealed that the most affected age group was from 1 - 5 years (n=19, 39%) followed by 11 - 14 years (37%). Boys were predominantly involved in ocular injuries in our study (n=39, 79.6%). Open globe injury was seen in 34.7% (n=17) cases, sole closed globe injury (without any breach in anatomy) in 24.5% (n=12) cases, isolated eyelid injury in 26.5% (n=13), chemical injury in 8.2% (n=4) children. Injury during play was the most common way of injury (n=17, 34.7%), followed by household trauma (n=11, 22.4%) while firecracker/chemical injury was seen in 8.2% of cases (n=4). Outdoor activities in school also contributed 10.2% of cases (n=5) among the injuries. CONCLUSIONS Ocular injury is one of the most catastrophic events in the lifetime of a child which can be mostly prevented by proper awareness and parental education. Epidemiological factors leading to ocular trauma must be ascertained, triaged, and properly taken care of.
