Epidemiology of traumatic lenticular subluxation in India

To study the epidemiological and clinical profile of patients with traumatic subluxated lenses at a tertiary care center in India. Ours was a non-comparative descriptive case series. Evaluation of 71 eyes of 71 consecutive patients presenting to the lens clinic over a period of 2 years with traumatic lenticular subluxation was done. Demographic and clinical profile of patients was acquired, followed by a biomicroscopic examination of the cornea, anterior chamber, iris, lens, angles, zonules, anterior vitreous and fundus. Most of the patients were adolescents and belonged to lower socioeconomic status. The mean time lag before presenting was 33.6 months (range 5 days to 40 years) and mean visual acuity in the affected eyes was 1.67 + 0.56 logMAR. Blunt trauma (63/71) was nine times more common than penetrating trauma in the etiology of manifest subluxation. Injury while playing accounted for the highest rate of injury; sports-related injury with a gulli danda or a cricket bat and ball were the most common mode of blunt trauma while bow and arrow injury was the commonest cause of injury in the penetrating trauma subgroup. Cataract was the most frequent ocular association (53.5 %). All eyes had broken zonules and most presented with inferior subluxation (46 %). Traumatic lenticular subluxation, a unilateral cause of zonulolysis usually occurs while playing with a gulli danda, bow and arrow, or cricket bat and ball in Northern India. It is a major cause of severe visual loss and a modification in risk factors is mandatory to decrease ocular morbidity from trauma.