title: The Persian Wednesday Eve Festival "Charshanbe-Soori" fireworks eye injuries: a case series.
abstract: 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.
authors: Eye Research Center, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors: Mohammad-Reza
authors: MR
authors: Mansouri
authors: Seyed-Farzad
authors: SF
authors: Mohammadi
authors: Elham
authors: E
authors: Hatef
authors: Hamed
authors: H
authors: Rahbari
authors: Mohammad-Shahram
authors: MS
authors: Khazanehdari
authors: Pouya
authors: P
authors: Zandi
authors: Sasan
authors: S
authors: Moghimi
authors: Niloofar
authors: N
authors: Piri
authors: Alireza
authors: A
authors: Fahim
mesh_terms: 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