Corneal Blindness in Leprosy in Eastern Uttar Pradesh.

One hundred and eighteen cases of leprosy with ocular involvement were found to have corneal involvement out of a total 274 cases of ocular in volvement in leprosy. The common eye lesions observed were chronic conjunctivitis (54.01%), keratitis (47.07%), iritis (31.75%) and lagophthalmos (27.76%). In 38.98% of the cases, the time lag between the onset of skin lesions and corneal lesions was 5 to 15 years. The major causes, which lead to involvement of cornea, were corneal anaesthesia (116), lagophthalmos (76), ectropion (21), entropion (11) and trichiasis (4). Corneal blindness constituted 55.6% of total blindness in leprosy with ocular involvement.