Fracture of The Orbit (Eye)
The orbit is a cup-shaped bone that surrounds and protects the eye. The orbital rim is bone hard enough, while the base and the nasal side of the orbit are thin as paper in several places. A fracture is a broken orbital bone may be the rim, the floor or both sides of the bone.
Orbital rim fracture: are caused by a direct blow to the face, most commonly due to the impact of the dashboard or steering wheel in a car accident. Since it takes a lot of force to cause these fractures, they often come with very serious injuries in the facial bones and sometimes brain damage.
Even if the damage is limited to the eye area, there may be more injuries to the eye itself, such as injury to the optic nerve (responsible for vision), eye muscles, the nerves that produce the sensation in the forehead and cheek, the sinuses around the eye and tear duct. There are two types of fractures of the orbital rim.
Zygomatic fracture is a fracture of the lower edge of the rim of the eye, which is part of the cheekbone. A fracture of the frontal bone or frontal sinus fracture affecting the upper edge of the rim of the eye, which is part of the frontal bone of the forehead.
Indirect orbital floor fracture (“blowout fracture”) occurs when the bony ridge of the eye remains intact, but the floor of the orbit, thin as paper, cracks or breaks. This produces a small hole in the floor of the orbit that can trap parts of the eye muscles and surrounding structures. The injured eye may move abnormally within the orbit, which can cause double vision. Most burst fractures are caused by an impact in front of the eye with an object larger than the opening of the eye, like a baseball, a fist or a car dashboard.
Direct orbital floor fracture: if an orbital rim fracture is spread by the surrounding parts of the floor of the orbit, both the rim and orbital floor fracture. In the United States occur each year around 2.5 million eye injuries from trauma. About 85% of these injuries result from accidents, contact sports, the workplace, in car accidents or making home repairs. About 15% are caused by violent assaults. Men suffer from eye injuries due to trauma about four times more than women.
The average age of the injured person is around 30 years. The reason for the injury is usually a blunt object like a baseball, a hammer, a stone or piece of wood, and the most common site where injuries occur is at home. At first, the eye injuries occurred in automobile accidents, usually when the victim’s face hit the backboard. Such eye injuries have decreased considerably because there are more cars with air bags (airbags) and most states require seat belt use.