title: An assessment of etiological spectrum and injury characteristics among maxillofacial trauma patients of Government dental college and Research Institute, Bangalore.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Maxillofacial injuries pose a therapeutic challenge to trauma, maxillofacial and plastic surgeons practicing in developing countries. This was a retrospective study carried out to determine the incidence, etiology, injury characteristics of maxillofacial injuries reported at our centre.
  
  
  METHODS
  The data for this study were obtained from the medical records of 689 cases reported to our centre during the period from 2006-2009. Records of patients who were either treated in the emergency room as outpatients or the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery as inpatients were analyzed and were subjected to statistical analysis using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) for Windows version 17.0. Data was summarized in form of proportions and frequency tables for categorical variables and was subjected to Chi-Square test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Out of 689 patients, 75.9% were male and 24.1% were female. 42.5% of the patients were in the age group of 21 to 30 years. Road traffic accidents accounted for the majority (74.3%) of cases of maxillofacial trauma. Mandible was seen as the most commonly fractured bone (50.3%) and 53.8% head and neck injuries were most common among the associated injuries.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Road traffic accidents were clearly the most prevalent etiological factor for maxillofacial trauma. Measures on prevention of road traffic crashes should be strongly emphasized in order to reduce the occurrence of these injuries.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, AME's Dental College Hospital and Research Centre, Raichur - 584 103, India.
authors.forename: Yadavalli
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Guruprasad
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Government Dental College and Research Institute, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Or
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Hemavathy
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Government Dental College and Research Institute, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Girish
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Giraddi
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Government Dental College and Research Institute, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Jayaprasad N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Shetty
keywords: Bangalore; injury characteristics; maxillofacial trauma etiology