Three-year-old Gnaneshwar could have suffered from a lifetime of visual impairment if medical attention had been delayed any further. When this little boy showed signs of redness and swelling in the right eye, nobody thought this could lead to severe complications.

Initially Gnaneshwar’s mother Jamuna tried home remedies but of no avail. Following this the child was taken to a pediatrician who prescribed an eye drop and pills. However, medicines also had no effect and next day the child developed a 103 degree temperature and had severe headache.

After being referred to Columbia Asia Hospital, Whitefield, the child was immediately administered IV antibiotics and sent for CT scan. The diagnosis revealed that the child had right sided orbital cellulitis and abscess with ethmoid sinusitis. After opinions from Dr. Deepali Prabhu, Ophthalmologist and Dr. Debashish Datta Majumder, ENT specialist, he was operated the next morning for endoscopic decompression of orbital abscess.

Later Dr. Majumder said, “We do not see such cases very often where sinusitis develops into orbital cellulitis and further leads to abscess. If the child was brought in at the orbital cellulitis stage, we would have treated it medically. But since he was referred to the hospital after developing abscess, the pus was evacuated endoscopically. So, if a child is suffering from cold and fever with swelling near the eye region for some days parents should immediately consult a multi-specialty hospital.”

According to different studies, the frequency of orbital complications from sinus infection ranges from 0.5% to 3.9%. However, the incidence of orbital or periorbital abscesses varies considerably from 0% to 25% in the paediatric age group.

Rammohan, Gnaneshwar’s father who works in the IT sector, said, “We were very worried because the disease was wrongly diagnosed initially but then the correct diagnoses and treatment by the team of doctors at Columbia Asia totally recovered our child’s health.”

After the operation Gnaneshwar is under observation and recovering fast.