Characteristics of eviscerated patients in an ophthalmological center in the Colombian Caribbean

Abstract

Background: Patients submitted to eye evisceration present varied clinical and sociodemographic characteristics that determine surgical motivation. In Colombia, there are still gaps in information describing this population on the Caribbean coast. Objective: To characterize patients undergoing eye evisceration in an ophthalmologic referral center in the Caribbean. Methods: Retrospective cross-sectional study of patients undergoing evisceration in the period 2014-2021 in a ColombianCaribbean reference center. Descriptive and bivariate analyses were performed to find differences between groups. Results: Forty-two eyes were included in the period 2014-2021. About 69% of the patients were male, 83.3% were from low socioeconomic strata, and 76.2% lived in urban areas. The population was characterized as infantile age for the congenital cause, adult for trauma, and older adult for pathological. Regarding evisceration, the most common cause was pathological, with 57.1% related to the presence of diseases such as glaucoma and corneal ulcer. The most relevant presenting signs were ocular pain, which was associated with the pathological group (p = 0.003) and phthisis bulbi with trauma (p = 0.008). Conclusion: Pathological ocular evisceration due to glaucoma and corneal ulcers was the most frequent cause. At least 75% of cases received implants and more than 68% prostheses.