Penetrating injury of the eye

Penetrating injury of the eye1 represents a major threat to vision in the workplace,2 3home,2 4 school and playground, on the battlefield,5-8 and in sport.

It represents not only a cause of severe visual loss but also a profound emotional trauma to patients and their families. Treatment is time consuming and expensive but despite this there is often a grave prognosis.4 9

Esmaeli et al,4 in a retrospective analysis of 176 cases of ruptured globe, found that predictors of a good (6/18 or better) visual outcome were a presenting acuity after injury of 6/60 or better, wound location anterior to the pars plana, a wound length of 10 mm or less, and a sharp mechanism of injury.

They concluded from their data that eyes with wounds longer than 20 mm, which extend posterior to the equator, will lead to poor final vision and subsequent enucleation in …