SUMMARY
Purpose:
To study the prevalence and the evolution of visual acuity of the patients with violent ocular trauma.
Methods:
We performed a five-year retrospective study of 665 patients assisted at the São Paulo Hospital between January 1 991 to February 1997, and found 102 (1 5.3%) pacients witht violent ocular trauma.
Results:
The patients were distributed in four groups according to the etiology of the trauma: 1 - firearms (15%), 2 - cold steel (23%), 3 - corporal fight (17%) and 4 - other types of violence (45%). Regarding sex, 86 (84%) were males and 16 (16%) females. Almost all the patients were young, but the variance analysis did not show a statistically significant difference between the age and type of trauma. There were multiple lesions and the most affected ocular structure was the cornea (p < 0.001).
Conclusion:
The visual acuity remained the sarne in most patients and 71.5 % of the cases suffeced permanent loss of visual acuity (VA < 201200). Cases that became legally blind were 1 0.78% and in 6% of bilateral cases the prevalence was 100%.
Keywords:
Ocular trauma; Visual acuity; Legal blindness