ABSTRACT
One in four patients affected by maxillofacial trauma will have concomitant orbital fractures and ocular injuries; therefore, an ophthalmological evaluation is recommended for all patients who have been affected by facial trauma. Some ophthalmological exams soon after the trauma can be decisive for the preservation of visual acuity. Patients with physical examination findings of poor visual acuity, afferent pupillary defect, radiographic images with high depth of orbital fracture, are at greater risk of vision loss and specific concern for evaluation of ocular injury. The objective of this study was to gather the prevalent ophthalmologic clinical manifestations in patients affected by orbital fractures, to achieve a better perspective and understanding about the consequences that the pathology brings to the individual regarding ophthalmology and the most appropriate treatments. This is an integrative review study, using the Pubmed®/Medline®, SciELO, Virtual Health Library and Lilacs databases, with a controlled vocabulary according to the search strategy in each of the bibliographic databases, using the terms “ophthalmologic complications”, “prevalence”, “orbital fracture”, in studies published from 2013 to 2023. The quality of the articles was assessed using the Study Quality Assessment Tool from the Department of Health and Human Services. A total of 46 references were found, 20 in Pubmed®/Medline®, 17 in SciELO, 9 in the Virtual Health Library and none in Lilacs. After excluding duplicate references, 44 references were selected for eligibility assessment. After reading the titles and abstracts (n=44), 36 studies were excluded for the following reasons: articles that did not answer our scientific question (n=11) and publication over 10 years (n=25). In the eight selected articles, the objective of the study, the population studied, and the level of evidence were identified. The eight studies aimed to analyze orbital trauma with significant ocular and visual functional changes due to damage to bone, nerve, vascular, and even brain parenchymal tissue in the region of the floor and walls of orbital cavities. Among the most important ophthalmologic clinical manifestations, there are enophthalmos, diplopia, traumatic hyphema, retinal hemorrhage, amaurosis, chemosis, traumatic optic neuropathy and retrobulbar hematoma. Considering the eight studies analyzed, there was a unanimous presence of ophthalmological clinical manifestations in all affected patients, with low visual acuity and hyphema being predominant. Regarding the findings of lower prevalence, when equating them to the most common ophthalmologic clinical manifestations, they have as main factor the transient state, which can be concluded that, even with all the severity of the orbital fracture, its tendency is not to leave permanent sequelae in most cases, although the relationship established by the absence of permanent sequelae is not clear, speculating that this absence is due to the identification of the condition and the appropriate intervention in a timely manner.
Orbital fractures; Eye injuries; Facial injuries; Visual acuity; Prevalence
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