A clinical decision aid to discern patients without and with midfacial and mandibular fractures that require treatment (the REDUCTION-II study): a prospective multicentre cohort study

PURPOSE: To assess the diagnostic accuracy of physical examination findings and to construct clinical decision aids to discern emergency department patients without and with midfacial and mandibular fractures that require treatment. METHODS: A prospective multicentre cohort study was conducted in four hospitals in the Netherlands. Consecutive maxillofacial trauma patients were included whereupon each patient underwent a standardized physical examination consisting of 15 and 14 findings for midfacial and mandibular trauma, respectively. The primary outcome was the decision whether to treat during the emergency department stay or within 24 h of admission. The diagnostic accuracy was calculated for the individual physical examination findings and ensuing clinical decision aids with the focus being on detecting midfacial and mandibular fractures that require active treatment. RESULTS: A total of 766 midfacial trauma patients were identified of whom 339 (44.3%) had midfacial fractures. Of those, 74 (21.8%) required active treatment. A total of 280 mandibular trauma patients were identified of whom 66 (23.6%) had mandibular fractures. Of those, 37 (56.0%) required active treatment. The decision aid for midfacial trauma consisting of facial depression, epistaxis, ocular movement limitation, palpable step-off, objective malocclusion and tooth mobility or avulsion had a sensitivity of 97.3 (90.7–99.3), a specificity of 38.6 (35.0–42.3), and a negative predictive value of 99.3 (97.3–99.8). The decision aid for mandibular trauma consisting of mouth opening limitation, jaw movement pain, objective malocclusion and tooth mobility or avulsion resulted in a sensitivity of 100.0 (90.6–100.0), a specificity of 39.1 (33.2–45.4), and a negative predictive value of 100.0 (96.1–100.0). CONCLUSION: The clinical decision aids successfully identified midfacial and mandibular trauma patients requiring active fracture treatment and so may be useful in preventing unnecessary radiological procedures in the future. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov with the identifier NCT03314480. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00068-022-01892-4.