RT Journal Article
A1 Ramirez, David
A1 Keenan, Jeremy D
T1 Seasonality of Ocular Trauma in United States Emergency Departments
JF Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science
JO Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci.
YR 2017
VO 58
IS 8
SP 5946
OP 5946
SN 1552-5783
AB    The seasonality of emergency department visits for ocular complaints has not been well characterized. In this study, we use a nationally representative emergency department database searched for selected eye conditions to test the hypothesis that ocular trauma occurs more frequently in the summer months.    We queried the National Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) for a pre-specified set of ocular diagnoses for the years 2006 to 2013, including the most frequent types of eye trauma as well as retinal detachment and angle closure glaucoma. The total number of cases per month for each diagnosis was tabulated and graphed to reveal seasonal patterns.    Of the included diagnoses of ocular trauma from 2006 to 2013, the most common were superficial injury of the eye and adnexa (2,481,084 estimated cases nationwide) and foreign body on the external eye (1,320,195 cases), followed by contusion of the eye and adnexa (672,222 cases), open wounds in the ocular adnexa (686,958 cases), orbital floor blowout fractures (217,929 cases), burns confined to the eye and adnexa (161,051 cases), open globe injuries (112,232 cases), chemical burns (39,761 cases), retinal detachment (17,831 cases), angle-closure glaucoma (16,597 cases), central retinal artery occlusion (8,297 cases), intraocular foreign body (5,997 cases), injury to the optic nerve and pathways (3,702 cases) and oculomotor nerve injury (157 cases). Traumatic diagnoses, including superficial eye injury, foreign body of external eye, contusion of eye, and adnexal open wound all displayed obvious seasonal variation, with a peak of cases in the summer months (Figures 1 and 2).    Ocular trauma is a seasonal condition, with many more cases in the summer than in the winter. Public health campaigns aiming to prevent eye trauma would likely be of the highest yield in the late spring and early summer months.  This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.           
RD 9/28/2021