patients attending the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital. Emergency Centre who ... scores and zone with zone 1 experiencing greater pain than zone 5 (r=-0.58; ...
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE
Volume 88
July 1995
Pain and corneal foreign bodies Sunil Shah FRCOphth FRCSE1 A K Brahma FRCOphth1 A Sabala MB BS1 A Brown BSc MBCAB2 V F Hillier PhD MSc BASED ON PAPER READ TO SECTION OF OPHTHALMOLOGY, 9 JUNE 1994
J R Soc Med 1995;88:406P-408P
Keywords: pain; comea; foreign body
SUMMARY The commonest cause for ocular pain, presenting to an ophthalmic emergency centre, is due to comeal foreign bodies1,2. Although the problem is transient, the degree of morbidity is often underestimated. The object of this study was to assess the degree of pain associated with these lesions.
METHODS
Medical ethical committee approval was obtained. All patients attending the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital Emergency Centre who had not received any treatment were asked to volunteer for the study. All patients gave informed consent. Prior to any treatment, such as topical anaesthesia or removal of the foreign body, the patient was asked to assess his/her ocular pain on a 1Ocm visual analogue scale. The scale was marked 0 (indicating no pain) and 10 (indicating worst pain ever experienced), with no gradations between 0 and 1O. The age of the patient, sex and length of history were documented. The position of the foreign body on the cornea was also noted (Figure 1) according to Kaye-Wilson3. The exclusion criteria were age less than 16, prior treatment and previous ocular disease.
4
limbus RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Two hundred and two patients were enrolled in this study, of these 79% (160/202) were men and 21% (42/202) were women. There was no significant difference in the pain scores, age (33 versus 35), distribution, length of history, or zone on cornea between the two sexes. Most patients presented within a day of the injury (Figure 2). Adjacent zones on the cornea showed no statistical difference but there was a good negative correlation between the pain scores and zone with zone 1 experiencing greater pain than zone 5 (r=-0.58; P
