Background/Aim Maxillofacial trauma is frequent and represents a heavy burden for patients and society. The aim of this study was to investigate the characteristics and management of mandibular fractures caused by falls. Material and methods One hundred thirty‐nine patients with 185 mandible fractures caused by falls were included in this retrospective study. The patients were grouped according to age, gender, fitness level (as classified by the American Society of Anesthesiology physical status classification), the month of the accident, sites of fractures and treatment methods. Results Most adult and fit patients were treated with open reduction and internal fixation, except for intracapsular condyle fractures. Conservative management was chosen for paediatric patients and in all cases deemed at high risk for lengthy procedures under general anaesthesia (physical status III according to the American Society of Anesthesiology). Young patients were mainly males, whereas geriatric patients were mainly females. In cases of single‐site fracture, condylar fractures were the most prevalent. In cases with multiple sites, the association of condyle and symphysis fractures was the most frequent. Conclusions The results show an increasing trend in geriatric condyle fractures, especially in females. The epidemiology of fall‐related mandibular fractures is subject to the influence of seasonal, historical, cultural and demographic factors.

Piezosurgery is an innovative technique widely used for osteotomies in the field of oral and maxillofacial surgery. The surgical technique has been clinically supposed to cut mineralized bone selectively with reducing the risk of damage to adjacent soft tissues. However, none of the previous literature has reported any evidence of scientific experiments to examine performance of the piezoelectric device, i.e. the time required for cutting bone and the effect on soft tissues under the standardized conditions. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that cutting time of the piezoelectric device is longer than that of rotary instruments while the cut surface of bone is smoother and soft tissues are less damaged with piezosurgery under the standardized experimental system. We measured the time for cutting bone and soft tissues of rats with the piezoelectric device and rotary instruments. Damage to soft tissues was examined histologically, and the cut surface of bone was investigated using scanning electron microscopy. Our study demonstrated experimentally that piezosurgery provides a smooth cut bony surface with no damage to soft tissues and takes longer time to cut bone than conventional drillings. We propose that piezosurgery is beneficial for medical safety and usability.

 The singular value decomposition method is used to evaluate the eigenmodes of the tsunami inundation depth distribution and reduce the computational cost.  The variations in three variables are considered earthquake fault uncertainties: the fault depth, slip amount, and slip distribution.  A time-dependent probabilistic tsunami inundation assessment is performed with the BPT distribution to account for seismic imminence.

According to the authors' findings, fully erupted or superficially impacted mandibular third molars are a risk factor for angle fractures but at the same time a protective factor for the condyle. On the contrary, the absence of mandibular third molars "strengthens" the angle and represents a risk factor for condylar fractures.