Intra- and Postoperative Complications of Le Fort I Maxillary Osteotomy

The Le Fort I maxillary osteotomy is a versatile and simple procedure, which has gained popularity nowadays, to correct a wide range of malocclusion and maxillofacial deformities. This procedure is often associated with significant but rare postoperative complications. The aim of this study was to evaluate the types and frequencies of intra- and perioperative complications related to Le Fort I osteotomies in noncleft Iranian patients.

In this prospective study, all the healthy systemic patients, (ASA I, II) with the age range of 18 to 30 years from both genders, who had the skeletal class II or III deformities and required only isolated 1-piece maxillary Le Fort I osteotomy, were included in this study. These patients had no craniofacial cleft history and were candidates for orthognathic surgery in Maxillofacial Surgery Department of Qaem Hospital of Mashhad (Iran), 2015 to 2017. All of the operations were carried out or supervised by a single surgeon and anesthesiologist using the same protocol. The patients were monitored for occurrence of intra- or postoperative complications till 6 months. The t-test, Chi-squared test, and Fisher exact test were performed for data analysis using SPSS version 16 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL).

In the present study, a total of 114 consecutive patients with the average age of 22 ± 5 years from October 2015 to November 2017 were recruited. About 77 (67.54%) patients were presented skeletal class III deformity and 37 (32.46%) were class II. The most prevalent maxillary movement after Le Fort I osteotomy was identified to be isolated maxillary advancement in 51 (44.75%) patients. Only 10 (8.77%) of all 114 patients confronted surgical complications. Hemorrhagic complication (arterial bleeding from descending palatine artery and epistaxis) and anatomic complications (septal deviation and bad fracture) would be the most prevalent complications with the frequency of 5.25% and 3.5% in total. Maxillary setback with impaction presented the highest rate (36.4%) of complications compared to other maxillary movement types. On balance, there was a significant association between Le Fort I surgery complications and maxillary movement types in our research (P = 0.002).

The rate of intra- and postoperative complications following Le Fort I osteotomy for healthy noncleft adults in our center was low. Therefore, it can be concluded that this technique is safe and reliable. The maxillofacial surgeon should pay more attention for prevention or even management of the risk of intra- and perioperative complications in patients with anatomic irregularities (previous craniofacial cleft or trauma history) and those who required maxillary setback concomitant with impaction movements.