Abstract
Abstract: :
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the most significant factors for predicting ocular injuries or tissue lesions based on a parametric analysis of experimental data from eye impact tests. Methods: Data from nine existing studies consisting of 71 total experiments were sorted according to projectile characteristics such as type, mass, and diameter. Five eye injury groups were established: corneal abrasion, hyphema, lens dislocation, retinal damage, and globe rupture. Projectiles used to impact the eye included BB’s, foam, metal rods, baseballs, and squash balls. Impact velocities ranged from 2 m/s to 122 m/s. Statistical values were generated from logistic regression to determine significant projectile characteristics for predicting ocular injury. Results: Among all of the predictors tested, normalized energy (energy/projected area) yielded the best injury risk curve with the most significance (p=0.001 in all cases). A 50% risk of corneal abrasion and lens dislocation were found at 1,479 kg/s2 and 18,450 kg/s2, respectively, for globe rupture and hyphema at 23,767 kg/s2 and 20,183 kg/s2, respectively, and at 30,869 kg/s2 for retinal damage. Kinetic energy alone was not as significant a predictor for ocular injury as normalized energy, yielding less significant p–values. Both mass and velocity were considered poor predictors, with higher p–values in comparison with other measures. Conclusions: This study is the first to derive injury risk functions based on a pooling and reevaluation of data from previously published eye impact experiments. Such data pooling yields a larger database able to cover a broader range of projectile characteristics and observed injuries. Normalized energy was the most significant predictor of injury type and tissue lesion. The development of these risk functions allow automobile, sports equipment, and other consumer product designers to evaluate the potential for eye injuries from the outset of the design process, seriously reducing the eye injury potential for a variety of products.
Keywords: trauma • cornea: basic science • retinal detachment