# The 7th Military Vision Symposium on Ocular Readiness for Military Conflicts and Civilian Casualties

> **NIH NIH R13** · SCHEPENS EYE RESEARCH INSTITUTE · 2021 · $40,000

## Abstract

Abstract:
This application is a request for funding to support of the 7th Military Vision Symposium that is the only meeting
of its kind bringing together military and civilian ophthalmologists, optometrists and vision researchers. Over the
years, these meetings have provided an exciting and unique forum to exchange information and explore the
critical unmet needs of traumatic ocular injuries. Combat ocular injuries have increased steadily in wars and
continue to occur in the military conflicts in the Middle East and Africa where American soldiers are deployed,
as well as in terrorist and other mass casualty events in the United States. Military eye injuries have increased
by 7-21% over recent years due to increased survival of individuals with previously life threatening injuries, with
women having more eye injuries than men. From 2000-2010 there were 186,555 eye injuries worldwide in military
medical facilities. Based on published data, during this period the total cost of eye injuries in the military each
year has been $2.282 billion, which represents superficial eye injury, non- superficial eye injury, and vision
impairment related to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Added to the military eye injuries are the civilian injuries that
occur in terrorist attacks and mass casualty events such as explosions from oil carrying freight cars or in the
work place. Terrorist attacks on civilian targets in the United States and world-wide show no sign of abating.
There is no database that analyzes eye injuries from all these types of trauma and/or blast events in the United
States. The development of effective treatments for eye injuries from trauma and blasts is of paramount
importance to preserve vision in our military personnel who are in harm’s’ way as well as for civilians in terrorist
and mass casualty events. There is a clear need for military ophthalmologists and optometrists to interact with
civilian clinicians and basic researchers to leverage new advances and technologies to repair and rehabilitate
military eye injuries from blasts. The proposed symposium will provide the opportunity for such interactions.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10156646
- **Project number:** 1R13EY032405-01
- **Recipient organization:** SCHEPENS EYE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
- **Principal Investigator:** Dong Feng Chen
- **Activity code:** R13 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $40,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-01-01 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10156646

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10156646, The 7th Military Vision Symposium on Ocular Readiness for Military Conflicts and Civilian Casualties (1R13EY032405-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10156646. Licensed CC0.

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