British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons' National Facial Injury Surveys: hard tissue facial injuries presenting to UK emergency departments

Abstract

The British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (BAOMS) and Saving Faces undertook two national prospective surveys 11 years apart. They recorded the facial injuries treated in UK emergency departments and collected data on 14872 patients. In this paper, which aims to act as a feasibility study for a third national survey of facial injuries, we have reviewed hard-tissue injuries and specifically focused on temporal changes in their morphology. The two sets of directly comparable, categorical, unpaired, cross-sectional data were evaluated independently for statistical significance. In 1997, there were 1977 hard-tissue facial injuries (33%) but in 2008 this had decreased to 1899 (22%) (p<0.05). In 1997, there were 1315 fractures (22%) and 662 dental injuries (11%) compared with 1462 (17%) fractures and 438 (5%) dental injuries in 2008 (p<0.05). There were proportional increases in orbital (21%), nasal (139%), and cranial fractures (340%) (p<0.05). The data showed a small reduction in the total number of hard-tissue injuries, but this was a considerable reduction as a proportion of the total injuries. Analysis of the type and subtype of injury generally pointed towards a reduction in their energy and severity, and to likely changes in mechanism. The project has proved the feasibility of a third national survey of facial injury.

Keywords: BAOMS; UK emergency departments; dental trauma; facial fractures; facial injuries; facial trauma.