Clinical Study on Blowout Fractures of the Inferior and Medial Orbital Walls

Kwon, Jae Hwan; Han, Chang Yong; Bahn, Jung Min; Kim, Jin Gu; Kim, Gi Chul; Park, Gi Ho; Cho, Joong Hwan

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: A blowout fracture is the outward fracture of orbital wall that occurs at the inferior wall or medial wall as intraocular pressure, caused by the impact of trauma, increases rapidly. The importance of diagnosis and treatment for blowout fractures have increased as heavy industrialization, high speed transportation and violent accidents have increased recently. We caaried out a retrospective study of blowout fracture according to different incidences, treatment methods and their results. MATERIALS AND METHOD: A retrospective review was performed on 154 cases of blowout fracture. They were diagnosed with 5mm facial CT, and treated in our department from March, 1989 to March, 1998.
RESULTS
Severnty-four patients (48%) had medial fractures, 49 patients (32%) had inferior fractures and 31 patients (20%) had medial and inferior fractures. The cases of inferior fractures were treated with the reduction of fractured area with autologous bone harvested from the anterior wall of maxillary sinus, titanium mesh, and silastic sheet. Medial fractures were treated with endoscopic intranasal reduction with silastic sheet.
CONCLUSION
In this study, medial fractures comprised 68%, demonstrating more incidence than inferior fractures. Anterior wall of maxillary sinus was very useful in reduction of inferior wall fracture. We operated on 92 patients of the 154 cases of inferior and medial blowout fractures, and had successful results.