Ophthalmological findings in Cameroonian boxers

The medical question

How common are eye lesions among boxers, and how many of them threaten sight?

The Fight Medicine Research Institute uses this evidence to frame questions about eye examinations for boxers and about the eye lesions found in active and retired fighters. The study’s small sample from one country and its lack of a comparison group determine which questions it can inform.

Summary

Eye examinations of 35 boxers in Cameroon found at least one eye lesion in 18 of them, and 11 of the 33 lesions recorded were classed as sight-threatening.

What the work reports

• Thirty-five boxers affiliated with the Cameroon Boxing Federation (34 amateurs and 1 professional; 30 active and 5 retired) had a complete eye examination at a teaching hospital in Yaoundé between June and December 2012.
• Eighteen of the 35 boxers had one or more eye lesions, 33 in all: 22 classed as minor, most often subconjunctival hemorrhage (bleeding on the white of the eye) and lid scars, and 11 classed as sight-threatening, including 4 cataracts and 1 retinal detachment. The authors report that five boxers were blind in one eye.
• Lesions were more common in boxers older than 30 (88.9% against 38.5%) and in those with more than five years of boxing (87.5% against 21.1%). The authors conclude that boxing-related eye injuries are common in Cameroon, and they recommend eye examinations at the start of, during and after a boxing career and mandatory use of protective equipment.

Limits to keep in mind

• There was no comparison group of people who do not box, so the study cannot show how much more common these lesions are in boxers.
• The authors name the small sample as a limit: 35 of the 48 boxers contacted took part, including 5 retired boxers, one woman and one professional.
• They also report that the questionnaire on the boxers’ careers was not fully completed.

Source issues recorded

• The article states that it is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The Crossref record lists the publisher as Informa UK Limited.

Publication status and notices

Published in Clinical Ophthalmology, a peer-reviewed journal. Original research article in Clinical Ophthalmology.

Form of this work: Version of record. The version of record is the final article as issued by its publisher.

No correction or retraction notice was found in Crossref or Europe PMC when this record was checked.

Fight Medicine Research Institute contribution

Fight Medicine Research Institute selected and catalogued this study, prepared an original research summary, verified its bibliographic details, and maintains the associated citation record.

PDF files

Article details

Relationship

External research catalogued by the Fight Medicine Research Institute. The original authors, journal and DOI are unchanged.

Published online

June 2017

Repository date

12 June 2017 (Europe PMC first-publication date)

Date used here

12 June 2017 (Europe PMC first-publication date)

Rights

CC BY-NC 3.0. Open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC 3.0), as recorded by Europe PMC and the licence link in the source record. The licence does not cover commercial reuse. The summary on this page is Fight Medicine Research Institute’s own wording. No text or figure from the article is reproduced here. Licence terms.

Source check

12 November 2026, against PubMed Central full text, Crossref and Europe PMC. Checked under the direction of Casey C. Sears, Founder. An LLM was utilized as a research tool with direct human oversight.

Appraisal

The check covered bibliographic details, links, licence and notices. It is not a formal critical appraisal of the full paper.

Clinical review

None. This record is a research summary, not clinical education.

Funding and conflicts

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work. The article contains no funding statement.

Catalog

FH-059, added 12 November 2026

Cite the original work

These files cite the work by its own authors, journal and DOI. Fight Medicine Research Institute appears only in a note, as curator of this catalog page.

Giles Kagmeni, Georges Nguefack-Tsague, Steve Robert Ebana Mvogo, Come Ebana Mvogo. Ophthalmological findings in Cameroonian boxers. Clinical Ophthalmology. 2017;11:1121-1126. https://doi.org/10.2147/OPTH.S134173

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Related on this website

• Fighter Health: Eye injuries