June 2021
Volume 62, Issue 8
Open Access
ARVO Annual Meeting Abstract  |   June 2021
Baseball- and softball-related ocular trauma emergencies in the US
Author Affiliations & Notes
  • Neil Vallabh
    Pediatric Ophthalmology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
  • W. Walker Motley
    Pediatric Ophthalmology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
  • Footnotes
    Commercial Relationships   Neil Vallabh, None; W. Motley, None
  • Footnotes
    Support  None
Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science June 2021, Vol.62, 2636. doi:
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      Neil Vallabh, W. Walker Motley; Baseball- and softball-related ocular trauma emergencies in the US. Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. 2021;62(8):2636.

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Abstract

Purpose : Baseball has long been called America’s pastime. As the first professional sport in the US, baseball has been a source of great pleasure and leisure; however, the sport is also associated with occurrence of ocular trauma. We performed a retrospective analysis assessing baseball-related ocular injury incidence and trends across the US.

Methods : We analyzed ten years of emergency department (ED) data from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (2009-2018). We identified baseball- and softball-related ocular trauma (BOT, collectively) presenting to EDs. We grouped patients by age in years (y): Pediatric, ≤17y; Adult, ≥18y. We analyzed normality with both Shapiro- Wilk tests and Q-Q plots and variances with Levene’s tests. We performed Student’s t-, Welch’s t-, and Mann-Whitney U tests and calculated 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Results : From 2009-2018, an estimated 25816 (CI [21780-29852]) patients presented to US EDs with BOTs. Pediatric patients experienced 67.6% (n=17442) of BOTs; Adults, 32.4% (n=8375). Median patient age was 14y (interquartile range, 10-23y). Patients age 0-4y experienced 1.3% (n=342) of BOTs; 5-9y, 18.6% (n=4799); 10-14y, 35.4% (n=9149); 15-19y, 15.5% (n=3989); 20-24y, 7.0% (n=1797); 25-34y, 8.6% (n=2209); 35-44y, 6.6% (n=1706); 45-54y, 4.5% (n=1173); ≥55y, 2.5% (n=656).
Primary diagnoses were contusion/abrasion (51.2%, n=13230), other (34.8%, n=8994), laceration (3.3%, n=844), conjunctivitis (3.0%, n=782), foreign body (2.9%, n=750), hematoma (2.4%, n=621), or hemorrhage (2.3%, n=595).
Mean annual BOT incidence decreased by 630±336 (CI [5.91-∞]; p=.0487) in 2014-2018 compared to 2009-2013. Annual BOT incidence decreased by 32.0% from 2009 (n=2909; CI [1918-3901]) to 2018 (n=1998; CI [941-3056] and peaked in 2012 (n=4040; CI [2919-5160]), yielding a decrease of mean annual incidence from 2897±717 in 2009-2013 to 2267±222 in 2014-2018.

Conclusions : Nearly 2600 patients presented to US EDs with BOTs annually. Pediatric patients presented with BOTs more frequently than adults. Incidence of BOTs has decreased in recent years, which may suggest an increase in the use or efficacy of protective sporting equipment. We encourage the use of protective eyewear when playing baseball and softball.

This is a 2021 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.

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