1 Xylene is a hydrocarbon solvent found in various industrial preparations such as paint and is widely used in pathology laboratories.
2 When inadvertently instilled into the eye significant ocular injury can occur with the potential for blindness.
3 Such injuries to the ocular surface resemble those due to alkali.
4 Ocular surface injury due to xylene has not been reported previously in the literature. We strongly recommend that these injuries be treated as emergen cies in a similar way to alkali burns in the Eye department since the chemical mixture of which xylene forms a part may be alkaline. Such an approach is vital in order to save sight.
