The impact of topical treatment for chalazia on the odds of procedural management

Abstract

Chalazia in pediatric patients are often treated with topical antibiotics or steroids, although no strong evidence supports their use. This retrospective review of pediatric patients with chalazia did not find a decreased odds of undergoing procedural treatment (incision and curettage and/or intralesional steroid injection) with initial topical antibiotics and/or steroids compared to conservative measures. Inflamed chalazia may benefit from topical treatment, but small sample size limits this subgroup analysis. Shorter pre-topical treatment chalazion duration correlated with a lower risk of procedural intervention. Regimens that included steroids were not found to be more effective than topical antibiotics alone.