Trauma News

Fireworks are a ubiquitous presence among Fourth of July celebrations; however, these bright and colorful displays pose a danger to children who may want to handle these dangerous products.

Traumatic injuries often leave a devastating effect on the visual potential of patients for an entire lifetime. Tactful handling of these cases is necessary, and often multiple surgical approaches are necessary to optimize the visual output.

The cover story of the March 25 issue of Ocular Surgery News focused on managing ocular injuries. Here are some of the issue’s publication exclusives:

Ocular injury is globally one of the leading causes of blindness and visual impairment. When researching data, however, the impression is that ocular trauma is underrecognized as a problem. Updated epidemiological studies are lacking, public awareness is low, and not enough is done regarding prevention.

Point

One of the most gratifying surgical cases I remember from my fellowship training was an 8-year-old boy named Vartan, who came to the ER at UCLA with a perforating corneal wound. It seems his classmate had thrown a pencil across the aisle at him (boys do this because it’s fun), and the business end of the pencil found its way directly into the center of his cornea, causing a perfectly centered, horizontal 2.7-mm entry wound and a “dent” in the anterior lens cortex but an intact capsule. (In retrospect, I wish I’d met the boy who threw the pencil. If he could consistently repeat this trick of creating a perfect 2.7-mm corneal wound by throwing a pencil from 3 feet, he might make a fine cataract surgeon, although a limbal approach might be more astigmatically neutral.)

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. ― Sabing Lee, a member of the OCTANe board of directors, discusses the function of LaunchPad as a business accelerator and its role in expanding business opportunities in Southern California, here at the Medical Technology Innovation Forum. 

The annual Women in Ophthalmology Summer Symposium will take place in San Diego from Aug. 10 to 13 with a restructured format, new content and more networking opportunities, meeting chair Lisa Nijm, MD, JD, told Healio.com/OSN.

A study found that approximately 30,000 people present to the emergency department each year after experiencing eye injuries related to sports, but appropriate protective eyewear could potentially reduce the number of sports-related ocular trauma incidents.

A 51-year-old man with no significant ocular history presented to the Lahey Medical Center after sustaining a penetrating injury to the left eye during a home improvement project. The patient reported using a motorized wire brush to resurface a piece of sheet metal when an individual 16 mm wire broke free from the brush and penetrated his left cornea. The patient’s son immediately removed the intact wire with a pair of tweezers, and they visited a local urgent care center where he was prescribed tobramycin ointment. He was sent home with follow-up to see an ophthalmologist the next morning. The ophthalmologist then referred him to Lahey for further operative management. It had been 18 hours since the onset of injury by the time he was seen at Lahey.