Early immobilization of mandibular fractures: A retrospective study

Are open mandibular fractures still an emergency?

“…Champy et al considered that these fractures should be treated within 6 hours [1]. For Cawood, this delay is about 24 hours, but for most teams the cut between early and delayed treatment is around 72 hours [2][3][4][5]. The 6-hour delay stated by Champy was still the reference in our institution, as well as for many surgical teams in Western Europe, being the reason why we chose this cut in our study [6].…”

“…The only variable that we found to be statistically significant was smoking. Many studies emphasize the importance of substance abuse (tobacco, alcohol, illegal drugs) in complication occurrence [5,7,8,12,17,18,21], as they influence the physiological healing process. In addition, they may compromise Are open mandibular fractures still an emergency?…”

The influence of third molars in the line of mandibular angle fractures on wound and bone healing

“…Since fractures in the tooth-bearing area of the mandible are open fractures by definition, molar retention in the line of a fracture may cause an infection of the lower jaw along the periodontal ligament [15,16]. Many studies have described the complication rate of molars in the line of mandibular fractures in general [5,17,18], but only a few of them have presented data on mandibular angle fractures and a third molar in the fracture line.…”

A comparison of outcomes between immediate and delayed repair of mandibular fractures

“…Anderson and Alpert (11) displayed a 16% overall postoperative infection rate in a study of 75 mandible fractures, but no infections occurred in patients operated on within 24 h of injury. Another study by Maloney et al (12) reviewed 204 fractures in 131 patients with an overall infection rate of 4.4%. However, compliant patients treated within 72 h of injury had no infections (12).…”