天理市立病院における小児スポーツ眼外傷の発生状況

Abstract

Among patients who visited the Ophthalmological Department of Tenri Municipal Hospital due to sports-related eye injuries between July 1997 and March 2006, children aged ≦ 15 years were studied retrospectively. The evaluation items were age, gender, sport that induced injury, cause of injury, and ocular findings at the initial consultation. In patients with a corrected visual acuity of ≦ 0.6, visual acuity was surveyed at the final observation as well as ocular findings. The subjects were 122 children with unilateral eye injury. The age at the time of injury was most frequently 13 years. The sport that most frequently induced injury was baseball, with injuries due to balls observed very frequently. At the time of the first consultation, 6 of the 122 patients had a corrected visual acuity of ≦ 0.5, and the other patients had a corrected visual acuity of > 0.6. The ocular finding most frequently observed was traumatic iritis; in baseball and football, injuries tra㎜atic macula hole occurred in 1 patient each. Ophthalmologists should not only perform treatment of injuries but also give instructions and education to sports instructors and athletes as a part of concrete measures to reduce the incidence of sports-related eye injuries and, in additoin, develop methods of preventing the aggravation of injuries that have unfortunately occurred.