| dc.description.abstract | Background. There were studies about mandible fractures indicated that mandible fractures
have certain correlations with head injuries. One of them said that among patients with facial
bones fractures, patients with mandible fractures could suffer more severe head injury. Other
study mentioned that the more severe ones mandible fractures the less likely one had loss of
consciousness.
Method. The study was held at two teaching hospitals of FK-USU Medan during a periode of six
months. Patients admitted to emergency units of those hospitals with broken jaws were
evaluate according ATLS procedures. In secondary survey the broken jaws were evaluated
thoroughly, including the x-ray examinations wether the patients had one, two or more than
two lines of fractures of the mandible. Simultaneously the severity of the head injury were
being evaluated wether the patients had mild, moderate or severe head injury based on
Glasgow Coma Scale. The datas will be analyzed descriptively and statistically with SPSS 15.0
programs.
Results. There were only 16 patients included in the study, 13 males and 3 females. Their age
were ranged between 12 to 65 years old. The cause of the injuries were all traffic accident.
Eleven patients with 1 line fracture, 2 with 2 lines frctures and 3 with more than two lines of
fractures. The angle of mandible was the most frequently involved within 6 cases,
parasimphises involved in 5 cases, alveolars in 4 cases, body in 3 cases and simphises in 2 cases.
Fifteen patients with mild head injuries, only 1 with moderate head injury and none with severe
head injury. Eight with loss of consciousness and 8 without.
Discussion. Since there were not enough samples to be analyzed statistically, the report was
only descriptively. Alike previous study of Ajmal (2007) most cause of broken jaw was traffic
accident. Six over 16 patients had lines of fractures involving mandible angle, as King and Bewes
(2002) mentioned in their book. There was tendency of lost consciousness mare frequent
among patients with less lines of fractures on their broken jaws, just like Hung (2005)
mentioned in her study. The correlations between the severity of mandible fractures and head
injuries cannot be analyzed in this study.
Summary. Caused by lack of samples, this study can not tell if there was any correlations
between the severity of mandible fractures and the severity of head injuries. | en_US |
