Sudden blindness following facial trauma.

Blindness following facial trauma may occur with what appears to be a minor insult to the periorbital area. This report deals with our experience in treating five patients who had sudden blindness following frontal head trauma. Unselected optic nerve decompression was in general unrewarding in reversing blindness. However, the early administration of pharmacologic doses of corticosteroids does appear effective in reversing blindness in this select patient population and may indicate which patient is a good candidate for decompression. Examination of holographic experiments performed on dried skulls, in addition to clinical findings, appears to suggest that the cause of blindness associated with frontal head trauma may be related to stretching of the optic nerve and not necessarily to compression.