Missed injuries associated with maxillofacial trauma

BACKGROUND: Maxillofacial trauma in polytrauma settings is often associated with multiple injuries both trivial and life threatening, and their timely detection is the mainstay of definitive trauma management for preventing mortality and morbidity. Emergency management of all the patients reporting to our maxillofacial unit is either done by our center or they have been managed at the peripheral health care facility and relatively stable patient is referred to us. Anecdotally, we found inadequacies in transport methods, diagnosis, and detection of associated injuries in the patients referred to us from the peripheral health care facility. To substantiate our finding, this observational study has been planned. OBJECTIVE: To identify, diagnose, and document missed injuries associated with the maxillofacial trauma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All the trauma patients referred to the maxillofacial unit directly from the peripheral health care facility during the period of October 2017 to March 2019 were included in this study. RESULTS: We observed a total of 270 patients having both pure maxillofacial trauma and patients having documented other injuries associated with maxillofacial injuries. In our maxillofacial unit, functioning as a secondary screen, head to toe clinical examination was performed to document any previously missed out injuries. Missed injuries diagnosed by us included spinal injuries, temporal bone fractures, fractures of the styloid process, and even head injury. CONCLUSION: Frequent reassessment of trauma patients at all levels of trauma care and training health care personnel particularly those at peripheral health care facility and those involved in prehospital care are pivotal in managing the trauma patients in most efficient manner.