A comparative study of radiographic imagings in patients with maxillofacial fractures

The subject of this study consisted of 58 patients with Le Fort fractures, who were admitted to Chonbuk National University Hospital from Jan. 1988 to Oct. 1995. The author classified the maxillofacial fractures by Le Fort classification and examined the incidence of Le Fort fractures by age, sex and etiology. The purpose of this study was to compare the imagings of conventional radiographs with those of computed tomograms and to aid in the diagnosis of patients with Le Fort fractures. The following results were obtained; 1. The Le Fort fractures occurred mainly in 3rd and 4th decades, but there was no significant difference between decades. A ratio of men to women was 5.5 : 1. The major etiologic factors were traffic accident (69%), assault (14%) and fall-down (12%). 2. The most common type of Le Fort fracture was type I (49.3%). The numbers of Le Fort II, III fractures were 41.3%, 9.4% respectively. And 8.6% were midsagittal splitting fractures. 3. The discontinuity and haziness of the maxillary sinus were easily detected by Waters' view. In skull P/A view, it was difficult to observe fractures due to overlapping of the other structures, but the haziness of the maxillary sinus was sometimes observed.4. In Le Fort fractures, the fracture pattern of orbit, the wall of maxillary sinus, nasal bone and pterygoid plate were more easily detected in computed tomograms than in conventional radiograms.