Plastic Corneal Foreign Body Removal From a 2-Month-Old Infant: A Case Report.

BACKGROUND Infantile corneal foreign bodies (CFBs) are rare and frequently result in delayed diagnoses and treatment challenges. This report describes a case of a very young infant with a small plastic CFB that was successfully removed. CASE REPORT A 2-month-old boy was observed to have a "small dot" foreign body on his left cornea by his parents. No crying response to the CFB or other symptoms had ever been identified. Slit lamp examination revealed the presence of a small, oval, plastic foreign body in the corneal epithelial layer. This CFB was determined to be an ornament affixed to the dress that the babysitter was wearing at the time. For CFB removal, medical sedation was rejected by the infant's guardian. The initial attempt to flush the CFB out with saline or extract the CFB using a cotton-tipped applicator alone proved unsuccessful. Subsequent release of the CFB from the cornea was facilitated by the addition of proparacaine hydrochloride drops to the conjunctival sac and the use of a 1-mL needle, which was then adhered to the cotton-tipped applicator, thereby enabling its removal. CONCLUSIONS CFBs in young infants may not manifest any symptoms and thus can be easily ignored. The removal of plastic CFBs in those young infants who exhibit limited communication and cooperation abilities remains a challenging procedure. This report proposes a viable and low-risk, office-based approach to address the issue of CFB removal in infants.