Analysis of 185 maxillofacial fractures in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil

Abstract

A retrospective study was performed to assess maxillofacial fractures in patients treated at a public hospital from 2002 to 2006. The data collected included age, gender, etiology, type of injury, treatment modalities and period of treatment. Causes were grouped into seven categories: road traffic collisions, sports accidents, occupational accidents, gunshot fractures, falls, violence and other causes. The analyses involved descriptive statistics, the Chi-squared Test and the Fisher Exact Test. Records from 132 patients sustaining 185 maxillofacial fractures were evaluated. The mandible (54.6%) was the most commonly fractured bone in the facial skeleton, followed by the zygoma (27.6%). The mean age of the patients was 37.7 years, and the male:female ratio was 4.3:1. Most fractures occurred in adults with ages ranging from 18 to 39 years. A significant statistical relation was found between the age and the etiology of the trauma (p < 0.05), and between the number of fractured sites and the age of the patient (p < 0.05). Considering the age groups, accidents were the most frequent cause of maxillofacial fractures in the age group between 18 to 39 years, and interpersonal violence was the most frequent cause of maxillofacial fractures in the age group between 40 to 59 years. Treatment was performed on the same day as the diagnosis in 44.7% of the patients. Open surgery with internal stable fixation was indicated for most of the patients. Facial fractures occurred primarily among men under 30 years of age, and the most common sites of fractures in the face were the mandible and the zygomatic complex. Traffic road collisions were the main etiologic factor associated with maxillofacial trauma.

Study of the Pattern of Maxillofacial Fractures Seen at a Tertiary Care Hospital in North India

“…Our finding correlates with the findings of other studies [1,2,4,5,12,15,22,24,25,27,28,30,31] in respect to RTAs being the main etiological factor for maxillofacial fractures. This could be due to the fact that there is lack of individual sensitization about importance of safety devices of the vehicle, lack of adherence to safety rules and regulation, (most of the vehicles do not have all the safety devices), lack of clear road traffic signal, congestion on the road due to lack of separate pathways for pedestrians, large numbers of overloaded buses and poorly maintained two wheelers.…”

“…This finding correlates with findings of other studies [12,15,33]. Zygomatic complex as most common site was reported by some studied [1,13,19,22,24] and nasal bone fractures by others [7,9].…”

“…This finding correlates with findings of other studies [7,15,18,19,24,27,32,33,42]. However in contrast to our study, various studies have reported that most common mandibular fracture site was body of the mandible by [1,17,22,26,28,30,44,45], parasymphysis [3,6,46], symphysis by [12] and angle of the mandible by [9].…”

“…Although being the heaviest and strongest facial bone, the mandible is more susceptible to fracture because it is the only movable facial bone and it has anatomical peculiarity in form and location. Various studies have also shown the mandible to be the most affected bone [1,2,7,12,15,19,22,24,26,28,33,42]. But other studies accounted zygoma to be the maximally involved bone [29,43].…”

Patterns of Maxillofacial Fractures in Goa

“…Maxillofacial injuries are more predominant in men than in women. In the present study, the male to female ratio was 6:1, which is comparable to most studies except for in Pakistan where the ratio was 32:1 [4] ( Table 6). …”