Postoperative outcomes of adult patients with sagittal fractures of mandibular condyle: Quantitative evaluation and retrospective factor analysis.

PURPOSE: We attempted to adopt quantitative methods to precisely evaluate the surgical effect of sagittal fractures of mandibular condyle (SFMCs) and aimed to determine differences in postoperative results between different groups of patients.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

Postoperative data of patients with SFMC were collected and quantitative evaluations of subjective, clinical and imaging results were performed. SPSS software was used to analyze the data, and certain factors (gender, age, unilateral or bilateral SFMCs, injury time) were analyzed by univariate analysis.

RESULTS

Forty-four postoperative patients were included with an average follow-up of 15.7 months. Averages of resting pain, moving pain, and chewing pain were all <10. Averages of maximum mouth opening, protrusion, and ipsilateral excursive movement were 42.20, 4.80, and 5.98 mm, respectively. Moreover, 85.71% of condylar healing and remodeling was good, and average condylar absorption was 1.52 mm. Early-operated patients (injury time ≤2 weeks) exhibited greater ipsilateral excursive movement, higher condylar index, and lesser condylar absorption than late-operated patients (injury time >2 weeks). Patients with unilateral SFMC showed greater protrusive movement and higher condylar index than those with bilateral SFMCs.

CONCLUSION

Most patients with SFMCs could obtain good subjective, clinical and imaging results by appropriate surgical treatment. Early surgery could improve postoperative outcomes.