Etiology of vitreous hemorrhage in a tertiary eye care center in Nepal.

INTRODUCTION Vitreous hemorrhage is one of the most common differential diagnoses of sudden painless decrease in vision. OBJECTIVE To find out the etiology of vitreous hemorrhage in cases of vitreous hemorrhage at a tertiary eye centre in Nepal. MATERIALS AND METHODS This was a hospital-based cross-sectional study done over a period of one-and-a-half years. One hundred and one subjects with vitreous hemorrhage were evaluated in detail to establish the etiology. STATISTICS The mean value and standard deviation were calculated. The data were analyzed using microsoft excel and SPSS 11.5 program. RESULTS A total of 122 eyes of 101 patients were evaluated. The mean age was 41.90 (± 21.50) years with a range of 2 months to 84 years. Male were 73 %. Bilateral involvement was found in 20.8 %. Proliferative diabetic retinopathy, retinal vasculitis, branch retinal vein occlusion, rhegmatogenous retinal detachment together with ocular trauma constituted the etilogoy of vitreous hemorrhage in more than 75 % of patients. CONCLUSION Proliferative diabetic retinopathy, retinal vasculitis and branch retinal vein occlusion are the most common causes of vitreous hemorrhage in adults whereas in children trauma is the commonest cause.