Enucleation In China

Aims-To determine the incidence and the leading cause for enucleation in patients in China, a high speed economic developing country and focus on reduction of risk causes and the methods of prevention. Methods- Medicalrecords of inpatients undergoing enucleation including exenteration in the period from January 2002 to May 2005 in the Eye Centre of Zhejiang University Affiliated 2nd Hospital were reviewed to determine the leading cause ultimatelyleading to enucleation. Results- Unilateral enucleation was performed in 235patients (235 eyes), accounting for 1.8% of total 12879 inpatients from January 2002 to May 2005. The age range of the patients was from 12 month to 79 year. Trauma was the most leading cause for enucleation, 67.7% patients performed enucleation because of eye injuries, among which 45.3% was work-related. Others included intraocular malignancy (10.6% ) , a blind, painful eye induced by absolutely glaucoma (6.8%) or endophthamitis (1.3%) and atrophic globes (6.8%). Among the children under 15(including 15), trauma (67.3%, 35/52) and retinoblastoma (26.9%, 14/52) were the leading causes for enucleation.Conclusions- Trauma was the most common leading cause ultimately leading toenucleation in working adults and children. It attributes much to the rapid development of industry with relatively little attention being paid to improvement of the working protection establishments in China. First priority should be given to the strengthening of working protection in developing countries.