Assessment of Orbital Blowout Fractures in Maxillofacial trauma

Purpose: The aim of this research was to study the orbital blowout fractures and evaluate the relationship between such fractures and the associated trauma in a selected patient population. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the medical records of all the admitted maxillofacial trauma patients to a major trauma hospital in southern Iran were evaluated. The records included admissions from March 2014 through October 2018. Only cases with pure orbital blowout fractures were included. Using the results from computed tomography (CT) images, the selected cases were evaluated based on the types of trauma and characteristics of blowout fractures such as anatomical locations (medial wall, floor, and maxillo-ethmoidal strut) and severity. Results: Among 1092 admitted maxillofacial trauma patients, a total of 203 cases were selected. These included 175 male and 28 female patients with a mean age of 35.47±16.09 years old. Traffic accidents with 139 cases (68.47%) were the most common cause of orbital blowout fractures followed by falling (14.29%) and assault (9.85%). The medial wall was the most commonly involved location (39.9%) followed by orbital floor (31.53%), combination of medial wall and floor (17.73% cases), medial wall and maxillo-ethmoidal strut combination (6.4% cases), and all the three location altogether (4.43%). Most of the blowout fractures had mild severity (52.7%). Also, there was a significant relationship between the severity and location of the blowout fractures (P<0.001). Conclusions: In this study, the medial wall was the most common location of fracture. Also, traffic accidents were the most common cause of blowout fractures.