A study of mandibular fractures over a 5-year period of time: A retrospective study

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate and compare with the existing literature on the etiology, pattern, gender, and anatomical distribution of mandibular fractures. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The data of 225 cases were analyzed over a period of 5 years between March 2009 and November 2013. Of this 110 were unilateral, 23 bilateral, 18 symphysis and 74 multiple fractures. RESULTS: Males are more affected than females. The peak incidence rate is occurring in 30-35 years of age group. The most common fracture site is parasymphysis and least common site is ramus of mandible. The most common etiological factor is road traffic accident (RTA) (45.3%) followed by falls (42.6%), assaults (8.9%), sport injuries (2.2%), and gunshot wounds (0.89%). CONCLUSION: Thus, we conclude that RTA is the leading cause of mandibular fractures and males are more affected. The most common site is parasymphysis fracture in association with angle fracture. We observed that gender was significantly associated with body and angle fracture (P = 0.04) and significant relationship between etiology with multiple site fracture such as (parasymphysis-angle), (body-condyle), (body-angle), and (symphysis-condyle) was observed (P ≤ 0.05).