From January 1978 to August 1984, the authors studied the pattern of ocular injuries in the Afghan refugees of the Russian Invasion at the Department of Ophthalmology, Khyber Hospital, Peshawar, Pakistan. Out of a total of 669 Afghans admitted to the eye department, 221 (33%) had eye injuries. One third of these also had facial and other associated injuries. Most of them (210 or 95%) were men, and a large majority of them (151 or 68.3%) were in the 16- 30- year age group. The commonest cause of injury (in 206 or 93.2% of the patients) were bomb and mine blasts. Corneoscleral perforation was the most prevalent injury, and was bilateral in 25 patients. The retained intraocular or intraorbital foreign body was present in 28 patients, eight of whom had it bilaterally. Intraocular infection occurred in 52 (20.7%) of the injured eyes. Although primary repair was possible in 201 (80.1%) eyes, 50 (19.9%) eyes required primary excision either due to irreparable damage or for severe endophthalmitis. In 10 patients, enucleation had to be performed bilaterally. Compared to other studies, rate of infection in this study is higher (52 or 20.7% of the eyes). However, the incidences of loss of eye and of retained intraocular foreign body are similar to the past published reports.

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major clinical study Afghanistan battle injury eye injury refugee human