Abstract
Eye injury is very common. The Beaver Dam Eye Study reported a lifetime prevalence of 20% for all eye injuries in a civilian population, though the majority of these would be minor with only 1–2% likely to cause permanent visual loss [1]. Military personnel are more prone to sustaining severe eye injuries, with 5–15% of all military trauma involving the eye and greater than 50% of these having the potential to cause permanent visual loss [2]. In modern warfare, most casualties are civilian. In terrorist bombings in civilian settings the proportion of eye injuries has been reported as up to 20% though it varies depending on environment [3, 4]. The mechanism of injury is from missile fragments and secondary fragments of glass, cement and mortar that cause minimal damage to clothes or skin, but significant morbidity if they hit the eye. Unlike in peacetime where unilateral injuries are the rule, blast-related injuries are bilateral in 15–25% of cases [5, 6].
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Blanch, R.J. (2017). Ophthalmic Injury. In: Breeze, J., Penn-Barwell, J., Keene, D., O'Reilly, D., Jeyanathan, J., Mahoney, P. (eds) Ballistic Trauma. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61364-2_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61364-2_16
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