Purpose. To analyze the changes in ophthalmological emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown at a Spanish primary level hospital. Methods. The number and type of emergencies attended in the emergency department of Hospital Universitario del Henares between March 10 and August 31, 2020 (COVID-19 cohort) were compared with the emergencies attended during the same period of 2019 (pre-COVID-19 cohort). Data on the diagnosis, patient age, and gender was retrospectively collected from the electronic medical records of the hospital. The different diagnoses were organized into “clusters,” which include those conditions that affect the same ocular tissue and that have similar clinical expression. Results. The number of ophthalmological emergencies during the study period was 841, compared to 1343 during the same month of 2019, which represents a reduction of 37.4%. The percentage reduction in each cluster was as follows: conjunctiva (−65.4%), cornea (−35.8%), uveitis (−3.6%), eyelid and orbital and lacrimal (−35.5%), strabismus (−60%), neuro-ophthalmology (−11.8%), retina (−10.6%), cataract (+16.4%), glaucoma (−37%), and miscellaneous (−45.1%). The number of people seen with viral conjunctivitis decreased by −87.1% compared to 2019. Patients with complications due to conjunctivitis also decreased: patients with pseudomembranes dropped from 16 to 4 cases and patients with corneal subepithelial infiltrates from 9 to 3 cases. Conclusions. Most diagnostic clusters showed a similar decrease. Clusters that included vision-threating conditions (retina, neuro-ophthalmology, and uveitis) remained mostly stable. During the COVID-19 lockdown, the diagnosis of adenoviral conjunctivitis decreased nearly 10 times. This fact may represent a decrease in the transmission of these infections.
Introduction: Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) is a human herpesvirus responsible for systemic infections. Ocular involvement spans all ocular tissues. Corneal lesions, such as dendritic or geographic ulcers, are frequently found in HSV keratitis while conjunctival lesions have been described as infrequent.
Clinical case: A 62-year-old man diagnosed with Birdshot chorioretinopathy presented a stye in his eyelid that was treated with oxytetracycline-hydrocortisone ointment. One week later he returned presenting several small dendritic corneal ulcers in both eyes and a conjunctival ulcer in one of them. All lesions healed completely after treatment with topical acyclovir ophthalmic ointment at 3%.
Conclusions: We should pay attention to the conjunctiva and not merely focus on the cornea when examining patients with herpetic eye disease, especially if being treated with inmunosupressors.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.