Garden terror – case series of twenty eight serious ear injuries caused by yucca plants

Abstract

The yucca plant (genus Yucca, family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae) is a ubiquitous plant whose long and sharp leaf spines (Fig 1) are accountable for an increasing number of ear injuries presenting to the Emergency Department of our specialised tertiary hospital. Whereas most cases presented as easy-to-diagnose traumatic tympanic membrane perforations (TMP) which healed quickly, 4 cases were complicated by perilymphatic fistula (PLF), and these presented a diagnostic dilemma that resulted in late diagnoses.

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