Clinical Characteristics, Visual Outcomes, and Prognostic Factors of Open Globe Injuries

Background and Objectives: Open globe injuries (OGI) remain an important cause of visual impairment and loss, impacting all ages. A better understanding of the factors influencing visual outcomes is important in an attempt to improve the results of the treatment of OGI patients. The author aimed to contribute to this knowledge with the analysis of clinical characteristics, prognostic factors, and visual outcomes of their cohort of OGI patients. Materials and Methods: A retrospective medical record review was performed for 160 patients (161 eyes) who sustained an open globe injury between January 2015 and December 2017 and presented to the Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Data analyzed included age, sex, type, cause, place of OGI, initial visual acuity (VA), final best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), and tissue involvement. Open globe injuries were classified using the Birmingham Eye Trauma Terminology (BETT) and Ocular Trauma Classification System (OTCS). Univariate analysis was conducted to evaluate the prognostic factors. Results: The mean age of the patients was 41.9 years. The male-to-female ratio was found to be 8.4:1. The home was the leading place of eye injury (59.6%), followed by an outdoor environment (14.3%) and workplace (11.8%). Penetrating injury accounted for 43.5%, followed by intraocular foreign body injury (39.1%) and globe rupture (13%). Overall, 19.5% of patients regained a good final vision of ≥0.5, but for 48.1% of them, eye trauma resulted in severe visual impairment (BCVA ≤ 0.02). In the univariate analysis, a bad visual outcome of less than 0.02 was correlated with bad initial VA, iris dialysis, hypotony, vitreous hemorrhage, and vitreous prolapse at presentation. Phthisis bulbi was correlated with eyelid laceration, iris prolapse, iris dialysis, hyphema, vitreous prolapse, vitreous hemorrhage, and choroidal rupture at initial examination. Conclusions: Open globe injury remains an important preventable cause of ocular morbidity. This study provides data indicating that open globe injuries are a significant cause of visual impairment in our research group.