ABSTRACT

Although dentofacial injuries are rare in routine forensic practice, they are important in terms of medical and forensic consequences.

In this descriptive study, we aim to determine the features of the forensic cases admitted to Ondokuz Mayıs University (OMU) faculty of dentistry between January 1994 and Febru-ary 2006 (sociodemographic features, type of the incident, loca-tion of the fracture, radiologic examination, clinical diagnosis, treatment, extra injuries, sequels, loss of teeth and surgical inter-vention) and compare the results with those of similar studies.

The mean age of 53 patients included in the study is

32,8 + 16,08 (7-76). Forty-six patients are male (86,8%), 7 are fe-male (13,2%). Of 53 patients who experienced dentofacial trauma, 11 are self employed (%20,8), 10 are students (18,9%), 8 are farmers (15,1%), 12 deal with various jobs (22,6%) and the oc-cupation of 12 patients have not been reported (22,6%). Thir-ty-four them are hospitalized due to an attack (64,2%) and 11 of them are admitted due to traffic accident (20,8%). Panorex radiography is the most widely used procedure and was used in 48 cases (90,6%). In 51 of the cases (96,2%) fracture was detec-ted in the facial bones and mandibles. Fracture was observed in 33 (97,1%) out of 34 Among patients hospitalized due to assa-ult and in 10 (90,9%) out of 11 hospitalized due to traffic acci-dent. When the cases were examined with respect to alveolar fracture and loss of teeth, alveolar fracture was observed in 13 of the cases (24,5%) and at least one tooth loss was observed in 23 of the cases (43,4%).

Dentofacial trauma cases that have been handled by some de-partments of the medical faculties up to now are likely to be handled by the dentistry thanks to the increase in the number of the qualified surgeons and the staff. Hence it would be use-ful to arrange postgraduate courses about forensic odontology for the dentists in order to prevent mistakes in forensic evalu-ations and legal sanctions.