Maxillofacial Trauma Trends at a Tertiary Care Hospital: A Retrospective Study

Maxillofacial fractures are rapidly increasing from car accidents, industrial accidents, teenaged criminal activity, and sports injuries. Accurate assessment, appropriate diagnosis, and preparing individual treatment plans are necessary to reduce surgical complications. We investigated recent trends of facial bone fracture by period, cause, and type, with the objective of reducing surgical complications.

To investigate time trends of maxillofacial fractures, we reviewed medical records from 2,196 patients with maxillofacial fractures in 1981∼1987 (Group A), 1995∼1999 (Group B), and 2008∼2012 (Group C). We analyzed each group, comparing the number of patients, sex ratio, age, fracture site, and etiology.

The number of patients in each period was 418, 516, and 1,262 in Groups A to C. Of note is the increase in the number of patients from Group A to C. The sex ratios were 5.6:1, 3.5:1, and 3.8:1 in Groups A, B, and C. The most affected age group for fracture is 20∼29 in all three groups. Traffic accidents are the most common cause in Groups A and B, while there were somewhat different causes of fracture in Group C. Sports-induced facial trauma was twice as high in Group C compared with Group A and B. Mandible fracture accounts for a large portion of facial bone fractures overall.

We observed an increase in facial bone fracture patients at Kyungpook National University Dental Hospital over the years. Although facial injury caused by traffic accidents was still a major cause of facial bone fracture in all periods, the percentage decreased. In recent years, isolated mandible fracture increased but mandible and mid-facial complex fracture decreased, possibly because of a reduction in traffic accidents.