According to a new study led by Cunlin Wang, MD, an epidemiologist in the Office of Surveillance and Biometrics at FDA, more than 70,000 children are sent to emergency rooms a year as a result of using medical devices, such as contact lenses. The analysis is online in the journal Pediatrics.
Wang’s study shows that 70% of the injuries are caused by ophthalmic devices (including contact lenses and eye glasses), general hospital devices (hospital beds, and catheters for example), and OB-GYN devices.
The statistics were gathered between early 2004 and late 2005 and were based on information gathered from the national database for pediatric injuries. Nearly 145,000 injuries were reported in emergency rooms during this period. About 23% of those injuries were caused by contact lenses, while hypodermic needles accounted for 8%.