The Persian Wednesday Eve Festival "Charshanbe-Soori" fireworks eye injuries: a case series.
OBJECTIVE
To describe the clinical spectrum and severity of eye injuries sustained during the Persian Wednesday Eve Festival "Charshanbe-Soori" and to identify the fireworks devices involved.


METHODS
Prospectively, consecutive patients treated for fireworks-related eye injuries in the emergency room at Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran, over 3 days around the occasion in 2000, 2001, and 2002 were studied.


RESULTS
Four hundred thirty-seven cases of eye injuries with an age range of 2-74 (median 17; SD 11.1) years were studied: 84.6% were male; 18.6% of the injuries were bilateral; 79.9% of the injured were bystanders or passersby. Eleven types of devices were involved, of which seven were explosives and eight were homemade. "Narenjaks," homemade grenades, were involved in 62.2%, firecrackers in 14.8%, and sparklers in 6.2% of the events. Injuries were categorized as severe in 49% of cases, and 45 (10.4%) people were hospitalized. Five eyes with no light perception and/or enucleation, 33 cases of monocular blindness, 54 (12.3%) cases of open globe (including intraocular foreign bodies) were observed. Grenades, bystander and passerby roles, outdoor context, a relatively older age, lower socioeconomic status, and male gender in the subset of passive roles were the determinants of more severe injuries (all p values < 0.05). Lid injuries (67.7%), corneal abrasions (51.6%), hyphema (48.1%), superficial foreign bodies (32.5%), and corneal contusions (13.8%) were the five leading injuries.


CONCLUSIONS
In Iran, fireworks cause frequent and diverse injuries during the Wednesday Eve Festival and are a leading cause of severe eye injuries and monocular blindness.
Mansouri
Mohammad-Reza
MR
Eye Research Center, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Mohammadi
Seyed-Farzad
SF
Hatef
Elham
E
Rahbari
Hamed
H
Khazanehdari
Mohammad-Shahram
MS
Zandi
Pouya
P
Moghimi
Sasan
S
Piri
Niloofar
N
Fahim
Alireza
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001753:Blast Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005107:Explosions; D005131:Eye Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006693:Holidays; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies