Intracranial Complications of Penetrating Orbital Injuries

Abstract

<h3>Introduction</h3> Penetrating wounds of the orbital region which also enter the cranial cavity and cause brain damage have been regarded as rare events in the ophthalmic literature. Courville and Schillinger⁶reviewed 30,000 autopsy cases and found only one instance of central nervous system involvement resulting from orbital injury or disease. This was a case of actinomycotic abscess of the orbit which spread to the temporal lobe of the brain. Byron Smith,²³in an extensive monograph on orbital injuries, does not include a discussion of penetrating orbitocranial injuries at all. Penetrating orbitocranial injuries may constitute a dire threat to the patient's survival as well as to his visual apparatus. In a series of 42 orbitocranial wounds during World War II, Webster et al²⁸found a 12% mortality rate. This was twice the mortality rate for penetrating cranial injuries which entered the brain by any other route. Since the