BACKGROUNDChildhood ocular trauma is an important cause of disabling ocular morbidity. One third of the ocular trauma causing loss of vision is limited in the first decade of life. Children are more commonly affected because of their underdeveloped motor skills and high curiosity. Visual prognosis of severe ocular trauma is really challenging in paediatric age group. We wanted to study the causes and types of paediatric ocular injuries clinically. We also wanted to study the causes and types of ocular injuries in different ages, sexes, with an urban-rural distribution. among two hundred (n=200) number of patients up to 15 years of age. A detailed clinical and ophthalmological examinations were done in every patient.
RESULTSFall from a height (40%) and fingernail (19%) trauma were the most common causes of ocular injuries, followed by blouse hook (17%) injuries during breastfeeding, pencil and pen related trauma (11%) and fall on the rocks (13%). Other findings were corneal abrasion (28%), eyelid swelling (23%) and bruise (21%). Fracture of orbital wall (7.5%), sub conjunctival haemorrhage (19%), corneal perforation (6%), hyphema (4%), iris injury (6%), intraocular foreign body (10%) and globe rupture (3%). Posterior segment involvement was rare.
CONCLUSIONSChildren should be away from the traumatic agents as much as possible. Parents should be trained properly for early management before coming to the hospital. Creation of more referral centers for ocular emergency should be far from the urban areas for giving early management to the traumatized children to avoid visual morbidity as much as possible.