Contemporary aspects in the prognosis of traumatic hyphemas

Dimitris Papaconstantinou¹, Ilias Georgalas², Nikos Kourtis¹, Eftimios Karmiris¹, Chrysanthi Koutsandrea¹, et al

¹Department of Ophthalmology, University of Athens, Athens, Greece; ²“G Genimatas” Hospital, NHS, Athens, Greece

Purpose: The present study concerns traumatic hyphemas and their prognostic factors and signs. The aim of this study is to determine the prognostic factors and signs of traumatic hyphemas.

Methods: During the last five years, 72 young individuals were hospitalized with the diagnosis of suffering a traumatic hyphema and were divided in three groups according to the extent of their hyphema. The first group concerns 38 patients with a small hyphema 3–4 mm, the second group concerns 22 patients with moderate hyphema reaching the pupillary border, and the third group concerns 12 patients with a total hyphema.

Results: The hyphema was absorbed in 63 patients and the IOP was controlled with medical treatment after 3–24 days. However, surgical management was necessary for two patients. Finally, antiglaucomatous treatment was administered in seven patients with persistent high intraocular pressure.

Conclusions: The important clinical signs that determine the prognosis of such hyphemas are the size of hyphema, the blood color, recurrent hemorrhage, the absorption time, the increase of intraocular pressure, and blood staining of the cornea.

Keywords: traumatic hyphema, IOP rise, prognostic signs, blood staining of the cornea