[Clinical and catamnestic studies after oto- and rhinobasal skull fractures]

The large number of craniocerebral injuries with fractured bones entails an essential field of diagnostic and therapeutic activities for the hospital-based otorhinolaryngologist. It is only with the active involvement of experienced clinicians that paranasal sinuses can be inspected, lesions of the dura mater closed and functional structures of the petrous bone restored. Over a twelve-year period, 311 injuries of the base of the skull were treated in the Magdeburg Department of Otorhinolaryngology. Clinical findings, complications and therapeutic methods used during acute treatment, as well as permanent and late effects in patients with anterior and posterior skull base fractures were analyzed in a comparative approach. Despite early surgery of frontal base fractures, late sequelae have been extensive and resulted in far-reaching changes in patients injured. Temporal bone fractures have presented less problems following mainly conservative acute treatment, with late sequelae exclusively comprising local symptoms in the area of the fracture. Analysis of the present results of treatment demonstrates that otorhinolaryngologists, in cooperation with neurosurgeons, traumatologists, oral surgeons, ophthalmologists, neurologists and intensive care physicians, can efficiently and adequately treat fractures of the base of the skull.