• Chinyere Nnenne Pedro-Egbe, Chibuike Sydney Ejimadu, and Henrietta Nwachukwu.
• Department of Ophthalmology, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. cpegbe@weltekng.com
• Clin Ophthalmol. 2011 Jan 1; 5: 651-4.

BackgroundEye injuries and subsequent loss of vision from the glass and caps of exploding pressurized bottled drinks have been well reported, and as a result most developed countries now use mainly plastic bottles. In Nigeria, however, most drinks are still sold in glass bottles and ocular injuries from this source are therefore not uncommon.AimTo retrospectively analyze ocular injuries resulting from exploding glass-bottled Coca-Cola® and propose ways of eliminating such injuries in future.SettingEye Clinic, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.Materials And MethodsThe medical records of all cases of ocular injury that presented at the Eye Clinic of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital over a 5-year period (January 2006 to December 2010) were retrieved and relevant data including age, sex, occupation, events surrounding bottle explosion, and type of ocular injury sustained were extracted.ResultsA total of 426 cases of ocular injuries was seen during the period under review. There were 335 (78.6%) males and 91 (21.4%) females. Six patients had ocular injury from exploding glass-bottled Coca-Cola®, giving an incidence of 1.4%. The presenting visual acuities (VA) were light perception (2 cases), counting fingers (2 cases), and 1 VA of 6/24 and 1 VA of 6/12. There were 4 (66.7%) cases of corneoscleral laceration with uveal prolapse and 1 case of total hyphema.ConclusionBecause pressurized glass-bottles can explode with normal handling, legislation to ban the use of glass containers for bottling carbonated drinks will go a long way to reducing ocular morbidity from this source. Plastic bottles should be introduced as an alternative.

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