Open Journal of Ophthalmology, 2013, 3, 93-96 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojoph.2013.33022 Published Online August 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojoph) 93 A 10-Year Survey of Severe Eye Injuries in Sport in Belgrade, Serbia 2000-2009 Miloš Jovanović 1* , Dragan Vuković 1 , Vesna Jakšić 2 , Miroslav Knežević 1 , Lepša Žorić 2 , Miloš Mirković 2 1 Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia; 2 Faculty of Medicine, University of Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovska Mitrovica, Serbia. Email: * milosjov@scnet.rs Received January 23 rd , 2013; revised February 24 th , 2013; accepted March 15 th , 2013 Copyright © 2013 Miloš Jovanović et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Introduction: The eye injuries inflicted in different sport activities are relatively rare and depend upon the type of sport. They are more common in recreational sport activities. These injuries are generally minor but may be very severe and result in permanent vision impairment. One must be aware of the fact that these sport activities, either recreative or pro- fessional, are exercised by young people. Methods: All analyzed patients were hospitalized at the Clinic of Eye Dis- eases, Clinical Center of Serbia, Belgrade, for severe eye injuries which occurred in sport activities. The analyzed pe- riod included 10 years, from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2009. Results: In this period, a total of 117 patients with eye injuries sustained in some of sport activities were hospitalized. There were 114 (97.5%) injured males. Mean age of the injured was 25.8 years, and there were no individuals older than 50 years of age. Closed eyeball injures were reported in 96.6% and open injuries were seen in the remaining 3.4% of cases. During recreational sports, the eye inju- ries occurred in 76.1%, in the school—19.6%, and in professional sport—4.3% of the time. The injured individuals were as follows: pupils—35.0%, students—17.9%, workers—22.2%, clerks—20.6% and professional players—4.3% of cases. Upon completed treatment, visual acuity was normal in 77.8%, subnormal in 16.2%, impaired in 3.4% and amaurosis in 2.6% of cases. Keywords: Eye Injuries; Sport Activities; Recreation; Eye Protection 1. Introduction In the past decade, the incidence of sport eye injuries tended to have increasing growth [1,2]. Garrow, in 1923, reported that the sport eye injuries accounted only for 0.7% of all patients admitted for treatment of their eye injures in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary [3]. Canavan et al. in 1980 reported the incidence of sport eye injures of 4.1% [4], and Jones, in 1988, showed the increase of percentage to 25.1% [5], while in MacEwen’s paper, 1989, the proportion of sport eye injures was 42.2% [6]. At the beginning of 21st century such percentage was decreased, and therefore, Barr et al., in their study in 2000, reported the sport eye injury incidence of 12.5% [2], and in 2007 study by Len et al., such percent was 11% [7]. This paper analyzes the incidence, nature of injury and functional sequelae of sport injuries in Serbia in the first decade of our century. 2. Material and Methods The paper analyzed the patients who sustained the eye injuries in sport activities. Due to severity of eye injuries, they were all hospitalized and treated at the Clinic of Eye Diseases, Clinical Center of Serbia in Belgrade. The ana- lyzed period of time was 10 years, from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2009. Data from the Registry of in-pa- tients of the Clinic of Eye Diseases, Clinical Center of Serbia in Belgrade were used in this investigation. Hos- pitalized injured patients played football, tennis, basketball, handball, water polo and paintball as recreational activi- ties, in school at gym classes or as professional activities. The following parameters were analyzed: age, site of injury, occupation, nature of the eye injury, as well as final visual acuity of the injured eye. The objective of this investigation was to establish the frequency of the eye injuries in different sport activities, types of injury, final visual acuity and probable options * Corresponding author. Copyright © 2013 SciRes. OJOph