A 10-Year Survey of Severe Eye Injuries in Sport in Belgrade, Serbia 2000-2009 95
in different professional leagues or more often, just for
recreation purposes. That is why the eye injuries are more
frequent in football players playing it for fun. Only three
cases were reported among professional football players.
In one case, the injury was caused by blow of the oppo-
nent player’s elbow, resulting in bulbar rupture and
amaurosis. Other two open (penetrating) wounds of the
eyeball occurred in recreating football players, namely,
one sustained it while falling down and hitting the eye
against some prominent object on the ground and another
in similar way, by some sharp object on the playground.
The second game by frequency of the eye injuries was
tennis. Out of 10 (8.5%) tennis injuries, seven was caused
by racquet and three by ball. In all cases it was the ques-
tion of contusion globe injuries. Regarding the basketball,
the injuries were present in only 4 (3.4%) of all intrahos-
pitally-treated sport eye injuries. One of these injuries
occurred in professional basketball player. Three injuries
were reported in water polo, i.e. one in professional
player, which was caused by blow of the opponent player
and resulted in rupture of the globe. Only one patient
with the eye injury was reported in case of handball. It
was the contusion of the globe in a school-girl who sus-
tained her injury during gym class.
Although all these aforementioned sports after football
are relatively popular in Serbia, far lower percentage of
the eye injuries in other sports than football is accounted
for their lesser prevalence in recreational sport activity.
Recently introduced sport—paintball—is played in Serbia
only as recreation activity. Although adequate protective
devices are provided by regulations, 4 very serious inju-
ries were noted. All injuries occurred at the moment
when players’ goggles were off. In all 4 cases the patients
were adults, and 2 of them sustained severe injuries with
consequent loss of vision. One of these two patients was
a surgeon whose loss of vision disabled him to continue
with his surgical profession.
It is interesting that, during 10-year analyzed period,
there was no hockey player or boxer, although these two
sports represent activities with frequent eye injuries, what
was also reported by other authors [13-15].
Opposite to high proportion of injuries in recreational
sports, the reason for so small number of injuries in pro-
fessional players lies in their well-coordinated team play,
instructions given by their coaches and respect of the
basic rules of game.
Eye protection measures of sport players analyzed in
this study, other than paintball, are not provided by regu-
lations and, therefore, they are not applied. Nevertheless,
it does not mean that it is the issue not to be contemplated
on in future.
5. Conclusion
The conclusion has been reached that the eye injuries
during different sports mostly occurred in young people
who exercised sport as recreation. In a largest number of
cases, it was the question of contusion injuries of the
globes with the damage of intraocular structures. One-
third of the injured had the impaired vision of the injured
eye. For this reason, the prevention of injuries with strict
respect of the rules of games and wearing of protection
devices, if provided for specific game or sport, should be
given preference.
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