AIM:To analyze the spectrum characteristics of hospitalized patients with lacrimal duct obstruction diseases(LDOD)and evaluate the prevalence and risk factors.

METHODS: In this retrospective review, the medical data of 578 hospitalized patients(709 eyes)with LDOD, including age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, long-time living area, past surgical history, past eye-lid trauma history, ocular inflammation, nasal diseases and occlusion location were analyzed.

RESULTS:The age of LDOD patients was among 6mo～72 years, average 39.7±8.42 years. Gender ratio was 1:1.66(217:361)between male and female. On ethnicity, 64.2% of subjects were Han, 22.3% of subjects were Hui, 11.3% of subjects were Dongxiang, and 2.2% of subjects were other minority ethnicity. On occupation, 62.5% of subjects were peasants, 17.0% of subjects were workers, 7.1% of subjects were drivers, while other occupations took 14.4% parts in total. On long-time living area, about 61.3% of subjects lived in rural area, 23.7% of subjects lived in town, and rest 15.1% lived in city. On past surgical history, 87.5% of subjects never underwent surgery, about 10.6% of subjects underwent surgery, including 1.9% underwent more than one time. Among all patients about 4.0% of subjects had past eye-lid trauma history. Occlusion mostly located in nasolacrimal duct, lacrimal duct, canalicular and punctum.

CONCLUSION:The etiology of LDOD is multifactorial, has characteristics on age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, ocular inflammation, nasal diseases and other factors. A better understanding of the association between ethnicity and LDOD by epidemiology investigation may help its prevention and treatment in ethnic minority areas.