Annual Snapshot of Eye Injuries

In the United States, men are 3x more likely to suffer an eye injury, according to the Eye Injury Snapshot, and annual survey conducted by the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and the American Society of Ocular Trauma (ASOT).  Conducted during a 1-week period in the spring of 2010, the survey revealed that men suffered about three-quarters (73.5%) of all reported eye injuries, and the survey also found that most of the total eye injuries suffered occurred at home, while doing chores or playing sports. 

The AAO and the ASOT collected eye injury data each year to help increase public awareness and to encourage behavior that can help circumvent eye injuries.  The Eye Injury Snapshot survey also found the following:

• One quarter of eye injuries that occur at home resulted from play/sport activities
• One quarter occurred during home repair work or while using power tools.
• Most home-based eye injuries occurred in the yard or garden
• About 50% of reported injuries occurred in men and women 30-64 years of age; children < 12 years of age accounted for about 12% of injuries. 
• Almost half of eye injuries occurred between noon and 7:00 pm. 

To prevent some of the most common eye injuries that happen during household chores and repairs, the AAO and the ASOT recommend that every household have at least one pair of protective eyewear approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).  ANSI-approved eye wear is available at most hardware and home improvement stores and can be identified by the mark "Z87".  For sports activities, eye wear approved by the American Society for Testing the Materials is recommended.  To locate Appropriate eyewear for specific sports, the AAO and the ASOT suggests that clinicians tell their patients to talk to their ophthalmologists or visit the AAO Web site, www.geteyesmart.org.

Statin Use and Cataracts Among Patients with Diabetes

Despite data linking prolonged statin use with cataract development,  a recent study shows that patients with diabetes who take statins for a long period of time have no greater risk of developing cataracts than patients who have not taken prolonged coursed of statins.  Conducted by Hermans et al from Cliniques Universitaires St. - Luc, Belgium (Diabetes Metab, 2011), the analysis studied 780 patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) at very high risk for diabetic retinopathy (DR) and cataract, and determined that chronic statin therapy was neither cataractogenic nor was cataract presence associated with increased use of statin or other lipid-lowering drugs. 

According to the authors, studying patients with T2D offers "an ideal condition in which to assess the potential beneficial/detrimental effects of satins or other lipid-lowering drugs (LLD) on cataract, because T2D patients have a high prevalence of atherogenic dyslipidaemia as part of the associated metabolic syndrome, and also exhibit an increased incidence/prevalence of both hyperglycaemia and age-related cataracts(s)."

Major risk factors for cataract in T2D patients include hyperglycemia, diabetes duration and the presence of DR.  Additionally, the study noted that certain risk factors or markers may differ according to cataract subtype; for example, smoking is associated with nuclear opacities, ultraviolet radiation increase the risk for cortical opacities, and high blood pressure and corticosteroids raise the odds for subcapsular cataract. 

The diagnosis of cataract was made by an ophthalmologist in 16.8% of the study population during annual or biannual retinal checkups.  Lens extraction was considered a surrogate for cataract prevalence in patients who had undergone prior lens surgery for cataract.  Both age and duration of diabetes were significantly higher in the group with cataracts compared with those without.  DR was diagnosed in 23% of the patients.  According to the researchers, the "benefits of statin therapy in T2D may far outweigh any potential ocular drawbacks as a side effect which, in any case, were not supported by our findings."