What's up guys? Today we're going to talk about corneal aberrations, also known as corneal epithelial defects.

The reason being is because this is a very common eye injury and you're going to see this whether you work in emergency medicine, family medicine, or any other sub-specialty.

In addition, I thought it was important for me to talk about this because when I asked my students

to set up for this exam, most of them have no idea how to do the exam or what a corneal abrasion actually even looks like.

So with that said, let's talk about how these patients will present, how to do a good eye exam,

and how we treat these patients.

Corneal abrasions can be defined as a deficit in the epithelial

surface of the cornea. However, in order to fully understand where exactly the

deficit occurs, let's briefly go over the basic anatomy of the cornea. The cornea is made up of five layers,

with the outermost layer being the epithelium. Next you have the anterior limiting laminar,

the stroma, posterior limiting lamina, and the endothelium.

Corneal abrasions can occur from a variety of different mechanisms, but can be broken down into

traumatic corneal abrasions and spontaneous corneal abrasions. Traumatic corneal abrasions are often caused by abras

and spontaneous corneal abrasions. Traumatic corneal abrasions are often caused by fingernails,

paws from animals, pieces of paper, makeup applicators, hand tools, tree branches,

and even leaves.

Basically, anything that has the potential to scratch the eye

can cause a traumatic corneal abrasion.

In addition, other causes of traumatic corneal abrasions

include foreign bodies.

Commonly, these are going to be secondary to wood, rust,

glass, plastic. These deficits are left behind after the foreign body is removed, causing a deficit

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