Review of 793 facial fractures treated from 2001 to 2008 in a coruña university hospital: types and etiology.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the incidence, demographic distribution, type, and etiology of all facial fractures treated by the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in A Coruña University Hospital (Spain) from 2001 to 2008. A descriptive and analytic retrospective study evaluated 643 patients treated for facial fracture (excluding nasal and dento-alveolar) by the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in A Coruña University Hospital from January 2001 to December 2008. Five parameters were studied: year of the injury, gender, age, fracture type, and etiology. Six hundred and forty-three patients with 793 fractures were included. Of these, 83.2% were males and 16.8% were females. The patients' age ranged between 18 months and 89 years, with a mean of 37.6 and a median of 33. The major cause of injury was traffic accidents (27%), followed by assaults (20.5%), accidental traumas (20.1%), sports (11%), syncopes (7.8%), rural accidents (6.1%), industrial accidents (5.1%), and suicide attempts (0.3%). In 1.1% of the patients, it was impossible to verify the etiology. The etiology of facial fractures varies from one country to another, depending on the cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic factors. In our study, the most common cause was traffic accidents, closely followed by assaults. The number of fractures due to traffic accidents has decreased in the last 3 years. Rural accidents accounted for a significantly higher percentage of fractures than that observed in other series. The number of fractures receiving a surgical treatment from 2005 to 2008 has progressively decreased.