Assessment of Risk Factors, Etiological Factors and Visual Outcomes of Infected Globe Injuries among Paediatrics and Adults – A Prospective Study

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Ocular trauma is the major cause of monocularvisual impairment and blindness in the world. The aim of thepresent study was to assess the infected globe injury withreference to demography, etiology, clinical features and visualoutcomes among paediatric and adult patients.Material and Methods: The present study was a prospectivestudy which was done among 92 patients. All patients whopresented to ophthalmology department with mechanicalglobe injuries leading to ocular infection (see methodologyfor definition of ocular infection) were included in the study.Visual status assessment was done with a Snellen chart for allage groups except for children below 5 years of age where ageappropriate tests will be used for VA assessment.Results: The total number of patients in the study was92 patients. Majority of which 77 were found to be males(83.7%) and females were 15 (16.3%). Majority of thepatients were less than 20 years (39.5%). At 6 months followup after management, we found that there was a significantimprovement in BCVA level (P <0.001) and there was alsosignificant relationship of increase in the OTS score withbetter VA in our study. The factors such as Cornea infiltrate(OR = 7.37, 95%CI (1.13 – 47.96), p-=0.037), Fundus goodglow (OR = 0.02, 95%CI (0.001 – 0.23), p=0.002) and Dullglow (OR = 0.16, 95% CI (0.03 – 0.99), p =0.049) were foundto be significant after multivariate analysis.Conclusion: Corneal infiltrate was identified as the singlemost independent risk factor for poor outcome in ourstudy. Children were the mostly affected group with malesoutnumbering females. Wooden sticks were the commonestinsulting agent. Despite the late presentation and predominantzone I injury, eye could be salvaged in majority with visualrecovery of 6/12 and better in 41 cases (44.6%).