Silent foreign body in the optic nerve: A case report

A case is reported of a man with an unnoticed intraocular foreign body lodged in his left optic nerve. The foreign body had penetrated the eye 33 years earlier, and it was diagnosed in a routine examination. The patient developed bilateral glaucoma (both open-angle and angle-closure types), with a marked difference in neuropathy between his eyes. The authors suggest that the marked difference is an outcome of the compromised optic nerve that contained the foreign body in the nerve head.