Clinical spectrum and functional outcome of firearm pellet-related eye injuries: A prospective follow-up study.

PURPOSE

To determine the prognostic significance of various clinical features and surgical techniques concerning anatomical and visual outcomes in shotgun pellet-inflicted ocular trauma.

METHODS

This prospective follow-up study was done at a tertiary care institute in Kashmir, India. Six hundred sixty-four eyes of 643 patients with firearm pellet-related ocular trauma were followed up for 6 months.

RESULTS

Ocular injury involved one eye in 622 (96.7%) patients and both eyes in 21 (3.3%) patients. Open globe injury (OGI) occurred in 451 (67.9%) eyes with perforating injury being the commonest type (248 eyes, 54.9%). For perforating injuries, entry wounds in the cornea and limbus had the worst prognosis. Closed globe injury (CGI) occurred in 213 (32.1%) eyes. An anatomical success rate of 66.3% (n = 250) was achieved for 56.8% (377/664) eyes requiring an average of 2.8 (SD 0.5) surgeries per eye. OGI was associated with poor outcomes in 259 (57.4%) and CGI with good outcomes in 200 (93.9%) eyes. The visual outcome had a significant association with grade and zone of injury both in OGI and CGI, and with the type of injury in OGI (p < .0001 each). Ocular trauma score (OTS) had a significant association with the degree of vision impairment (p < .0001). WHO category 0 visual impairment was seen in 270 (40.7%) eyes, category 1 in 85 (12.8%), category 2 in 35 (5.3%), category 3 in 30 (4.5%), category 4 in 172 (25.9%), and category 5 in 72 (10.8%) eyes irrespective of type of injury at 6 months post-treatment.

CONCLUSIONS

The perforating injury was the commonest type of injury caused by shotgun pellets. The site of the entry wound in perforating injury had prognostic significance. The outcome was generally poor in OGI and good in CGI.