Ocular manifestations of COVID-19: facts and figures from a tertiary care center

Abstract

Introduction COVID-19 patients presenting with ocular manifestations are from 0.8% to 32% of patients seen in the ED. The available literature is scarce regarding COVID-19 patients presenting with ocular manifestations from the Middle Eastern region. Purpose This study aims to report the incidence of ocular signs and symptoms in COVID-19 patients and find any correlation between the occurrence of ocular manifestations and patients’ comorbidities. Methods All patients having the primary diagnosis of COVID-19 infection and concurrent ocular manifestations on admission to our tertiary COVID-19 health care centre were included in the study. The patient’s demographic data, comorbidities, and type of ocular manifestations were recorded from the patients’ health records retrospectively. Results In our study, 39 (7.8%) patients presented with ocular manifestations. The majority of COVID-19 patients were male, and 200 (20%) patients had a history of other comorbidities. The majority of our patients had hyperaemia (13 [33.3%]), followed by eye pain (9 [23.1%]), epiphora (8 [20.5%]), burning sensation (4 [10.3%]), and photophobia (2 [5.1%]) patients. There was no statistically significant difference in the occurrence of ocular manifestations and patients’ gender or comorbidities (p > .05). Conclusion The occurrence of ocular manifestations was lower compared to the present literature. There was no significant association between the occurrence of ocular manifestations and the patient’s gender or comorbidities.

Keywords

• covid-19
• comorbidities
• inflammatory markers
• ocular manifestations
• hyperaemia