Results and Complications of the Orbital Blowout Fractures Repair

Kwon, Min Sang; Moon, Jung Hwan; Kim, Jeong Geun; Kwon, Jae Hwan; Cho, Joong Hwan

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: There has been a recent surge in the frequency of blowout fracture operations in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology. Clinical symptoms and signs, operative timing and the results from fracture site and size have been researched in this study. We conducted this study to examine the postoperative complications causing re-operation in orbital blowout fracture repair in the last seven years.
SUBJECTS AND METHOD
Based on patients' clinical data, we retrospectively reviewed 160 patients who had operation because of blowout fracture from January 1998 to December 2004. Fifty-two patients had orbital floor, 74 patients had medial orbital wall, 34 patients had a combination of orbital floor and medial orbital wall fractures. We investigated diplopia, limitation of eye movements, and enophthalmos after the surgery, and analyzed the frequency and causes of re-operation. The mean postoperative follow-up was 24 months.
RESULTS
We classified complications into immediate complications which occurred within 24 hours, late complications which occurred between 24 hours and 2 weeks, and delayed complications which occurred 2 weeks or more after operation. The symptoms of complications included diplopia, EOM limitation, cheek hypoesthesia, loss of vision, oroantral fistula, implant infection, ectropion, and etc. In case of sequelae which lasted more than six months, the combination of orbital floor and medial orbital wall fractures was higher than other fracture types. We carried out re-operation on 14 cases and the main cause was incomplete reduction.
CONCLUSION
Surgeons should perform proper operation according to fracture site and type, and insert the implant after making an adequate dissection in order to reduce the frequency of complication and re-operation.