Aminocaproic Acid-Reply

In Reply. —The Ophthalmology Journal Club's inquiries are answerable by perusal of our article, by review of the previous literature, and by analysis of some unpublished data. All patients admitted to the University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary, Chicago, with traumatic hyphema were placed on the study protocol, while the hyphema was active, if the patients had no perforation or a hemoglobinopathy and if they provided informed consent. No patient was excluded because of hyphema size. The only patients requiring immediate surgical intervention were those with perforating injuries. The mechanism by which aminocaproic acid reduces the incidence of secondary hemorrhage (namely, antifibrinolysis) is unrelated to hyphema size. Furthermore, in the study performed by Crouch and Frenkel, 1 clots persisted for an average of 3.8 days in the placebo-treated group and 4.1 days in the aminocaproic acidtreated group, an insignificant difference. Our article also showed clearly that use of aminocaproic