The study was done to explore the risk factors associated with blindness after treatment of APAC, and to identify the critical time window to decrease the rate of blindness.
1030 consecutive subjects were taken and the analysis of 1164 eyes was done with APAC in China. The rates of blindness were analysed up to 3 months after treatment of APAC. A logistic regression was used to identify the risk factors associated with blindness, including age, gender, distance to hospital, rural or urban settings, treatment method, education level, time from symptom to treatment and presenting IOP. The critical time window associated with a blindness rate of ≤1% was calculated based on a cubic function by fitting TST to the rate of blindness at each time point.
After APAC the rate of blindness was 12.54%. In multivariate regression, education level, TST and presenting IOP were risk factors for blindness (p=0.022, 0.004 and 0.001, respectively). The critical time window associated with a blindness rate of ≤1% was 4.6 hours.
The study concluded that the education level, TST and presenting IOP were risk factors for blindness after APAC. Timely medical treatment is key in reducing blindness after APAC.
Reference: https://bjo.bmj.com/content/early/2020/08/06/bjophthalmol-2020-316259
