Nasal fracture most common facial injury in vehicle collisions

The most common type of facial injury resulting from motor vehicle collisions is a nasal fracture, according to a new study which found that airbags and seatbelts are associated with a reduced likelihood of these ruptures.
Nearly 11 per cent of patients examined at trauma centres following motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) had at least one facial fracture, researchers said.
David A Hyman from University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US and colleagues used data from the National Trauma Data Bank to assess facial fractures in MVCs from 2007 through 2012 reported by trauma centres.
The data included 518,106 individuals who were involved in an MVC and required assessment at a trauma centre. Of those patients, 56,422 (10.9 per cent) sustained a facial fracture, according to the study.

The most common facial fracture was a nasal fracture (5.6 per cent), followed by midface (3.8 per cent), other (3.2 per cent), orbital (2.6 per cent), mandible (2.2 per cent) and panfacial (0.8 per cent) fractures, researchers said.
Of the patients who were admitted to trauma centres with a facial fracture, 5.8 per cent had airbag protection only, 26.9 per cent used only a seat belt and 9.3 per cent used both airbags and seat belts, while 57.6 per cent used no protective device, they said.

According to researchers, using an airbag alone reduced the likelihood of sustaining any facial fracture by 18 per cent compared with using no protective device, a seat belt cut the likelihood by 43 per cent and the combination of seat belts and airbags decreased the likelihood by 53 per cent.

The study found that the likelihood of a facial fracture following a MVC was increased for individuals who were younger, male and used alcohol.
"Airbags, seat belts and the combination of the two devices incrementally reduce the likelihood of facial fracture compared with no protective device," researchers said.
"This trend may be owing to recent advances in airbag technology during the last 10 to 15 years," they said.
The findings were published in the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery.