The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of maxillofacial fractures in elderly patients in comparison to young patients. A retrospective study was conducted of 376 patients with maxillofacial fractures who underwent 64 multidetector-row CT (MDCT)procedures. The study patients comprised 81 elderly patients(≥ 60 years)and 295 young patients(<60 years). Age, sex, cause of injury and fracture location according to MDCT were analyzed using the χ 2 test with Fisherʼs exact test. The proportion of male vs female of elderly patients was 55.6% vs 44.4% and that of young patients was 73.9% vs 26.1%(p = 0.002). The causes of injury in the elderly patients were falls, traffic accidents, assaults, and sports incidents (59.3%, 32.1%, 7.4%, and 1.2%, respectively (p < 0.001)). The percentages of cases with mandibular angle fractures, condylar fractures, and median fractures were 3.7% of elderly patients vs 22.4% of young patients(p < 0.001), 63.0% of elderly patients vs 44.4% of young patients(p = 0.004), and 16.0% of elderly patients vs 30.8% of young patients (p = 0.008), respectively. In conclusion, mandibular condylar fractures dominate maxillofacial fractures in the elderly compared with mandibular median and angle fractures.