Prevalence of Hyphema and its Complications in Patients with Eye Blunt Trauma

Eye trauma is a common cause of one-sided blindness in children and teenagers. Blunt trauma can cause rupture of orbital cavity and the herniation of its content may affect the nearby sinuses leading to hemorrhage in the anterior chamber (hyphema).Traumatic hyphema that specially happens in the eyes with blunt trauma can be followed by high infra ocular pressure, corneal staining, cataract, injury of the optic nerve and sever loss of visual acuity (VA). Early diagnosis and treatment of this complication can prevent the later and worst complications. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of traumatic hyphema and its complications in eye blunt trauma.According to a cross- sectional descriptive protocol, we studied 83 patients with eye blunt trauma who referred to the eye clinics of Bahman 22nd and Farabi hospitals. A formal questionnaire was designed to be completed for personal particularities of each patient as well as the information about the examinations of orbit, cornea, AC, lens and optic nerves. In addition, the Intraocular Pressure (IOP) and initial VA were recorded. Then we analyzed these records and evaluated the prevalence of hyphema and its complications in eye blunt trauma. This study shows that hyphema is a common complication of eye blunt trauma that occurs in approximately 50% of the patients with eye blunt trauma. 36.1% of the patients were in the age group of 20-40 years old with an average age of 36.7 years. There were 65.9% males and 34.1% females. The most common causes of trauma included projectiles (48.8%) and assaults (36.6%). The most common associated symptoms with hyphema included red eye (56.09%) and dark vision (48.7%).The most frequent occurring complications included sever decrease of initial VA (75.6%) and high IOP (48.8%). Hyphema is a common complication of eye blunt trauma that may lead to other complications like sever loss of VA and high IOP. So, thinking of and searching for hyphema in any patient with eye blunt trauma can help us to diagnose it at early stages and prevent other complications.