Concomitant injuries associated with maxillofacial fractures in Abuja, Nigeria.

Background: Injury is the leading cause of death and disability and the third most common cause of death Little attention has been given to the concomitant injuries associated with maxillofacial fractures in scientific literatures.

Objectives: For effective planning and efficient management of the patients, there is need to study the pattern ofthese injuries.

Methods: Consecutive patients who sustained one or more facial bone fractures over a period of 2 years were prospectively studied.

Results: There were 103 patients out of which 96 sustained concomitant injuries giving an incidence of 93.2%.There were 75 (78.1%) males and 21 (21.9%) females with a M:F of 3.6:1. The mean + (SD) age was 30.8 +13.0 with a range of 2.0 to 68.0 years. Road Traffic Crashes was the commonest (n = 81, 84.4%) cause of injury. Soft tissue of the face, with an incidence of 62.1% (n = 64) was the commonest concomitant injury. It was followed by neurologic injury (n = 51, 49.5%) and ophthalmic injury (n = 38, 36.9%) while abdominal injury (n = 2, 1.9%) was the least common. Majority (87.5%) of the ophthalmic injury patients sustained midfacial fracture while 12.5% of the them sustained mandibular fractures. Pulmonary and cervical injuries were found to be associated more with mandibularfractures.

Conclusion: Concomitant injuries occur commonly with maxillofacial fractures and they were found to have significant effect on the management of the fractures. A multidisciplinary approach will bring about a very efficient management of patients.