Purpose: Chemical injuries of the eye may produce exten-sive damage to the ocular surface, resulting in transient or per-manent visual impairment. Purposes: To obtain data about epidemiology and inicial treatment aplied to patients who have suffered from ocular chemical burns and have arrived at a universitary hospital. Methods: An ocular evaluation was performed 47 patients with ocular chemical burns in the ophthalmological emer-gency room of the Hospital São Paulo -- Escola Paulista de Medicina / Universidade Federal de São Paulo. Results: Most victims were young male adults and industrial accidents were quite frequent (46.8%). Alkaline agents were more often involved (55.32%). The cornea was affected in 95.7% of the cases and grade I and II of Hughes' classification were the most seen. Initial treatment of these patients was performed in 89.4% of the cases (ocular irrigation with physiological saline and debris removal) and 21 patients (44.68%) received topical medication. Conclusions: Several mistakes in the patients' initial approach were observed which may have influenced the prognosis of some patients.
Ocular burns; Epidemiology; Emergency burn treatment
