Early stage eye damages in facial burns

Abstract

Purpose: Eye injuries induced by facial burns may be serious. Distinct eye damages in burn patients frequently have a poor prognosis. The extent of eye injuries was analyzed retrospectively with respect to the type, percentage and demographic distribution of the facial burns.

Materials and Method: During the last year, 94 patients were hospitalized for burn injuries at our center – facial burns form 16% (n=15) of all burn patients. The age range was between 3 months and 74 years. Eighty percent of the patients (n=12) were male. Percentages of burned areas to total body surface were between 5% and 62%. The causes of facial burns were flame (67%, n=10), hot water (13%, n=2) and hot milk (13%, n=2) scalds, and electrical burns (7%, n=1).

Results: Of the fifteen facial burns, sparing a water scald and an electric burn, 87% (n=13) had eye involvement. Only single eye was affected in two of the 13 patients who were scalded with hot water and hot milk. The types of injury with eye involvement were eye lid edema only (30.7%, n=4), eye lid burn (69.2%, n=9), conjunctival chemosis (15.3%, n=2), opacification of cornea and iris (15.3%, n=2), burned cilia (23%, n=3) and pterygium (7.6%, n=1). The mortality rate was 30.8% for burn patients with eye injury.

Conclusion: The results indicate that, eyes are damaged in a fairly large group of patients with facial burns. The extent of the eye damage can be an indication of the severity of burn injury itself and may perhaps be taken into consideration in acute phase burn classification. Further examinations and analysis need to be done to point out long lasting eye disorders in facial burn patients.