Dr. Rafiq

Hello friends, I am Dr Anubhav Gupta. I am a consultant of cosmetic and plastic surgeon. Today I am going to talk about a very common topic, that is Facial injuries. Now this is something which we see very common in our day to day life. Face is comprising of a lot of structures; the skin, there is the subcutaneous tissues, there are muscles, then there is bone underneath it. So when we talk about facial injuries, we can divide them broadly into two types:

•  One is the simple injuries and
• The complex facial injuries.

Now the simple injuries are the one, which we see like, our kids, they fall in the house, and they have cuts, and they have continuous lacerated wounds.

The complex facial injuries are seen when there are road traffic accidents, where there are deep cuts right up to the muscle and there are fractures of these bones.

So these are the common types of injuries related to face. Now the question which next comes to our mind is, what to do?

So in case of facial injuries, what is required to be to be done is, whenever such injuries happen, we need to apply some pressure on that, so that the bleeding stops. And if you are concerned about good scars and better looking sutured wounds, then you should consult a plastic surgeon to get it sutured. And in any case, it has to repaired, it has to be stitched. This is how the management of simple injuries is done.

But in case of complex injuries, they require advanced management, wherein not only a plastic surgeon but also a neurosurgeon and many other surgeons are involved because these injuries are usually not isolated injuries. They occur with head injuries also, and many times there are injuries to other parts of the body also. So it is better to take the patient to a better hospital. So in such injuries, what we usually do is, once the patient is stabilised, such injuries, for example a fractures, requires fixation.

Fixation means, is very similar to fracture of the hand or the limb, there is plating and screws and clamps and plasters and related things. The principles are similar for all these things also. So we use very fine, titanium plates for fractures.

The common fractured parts are the upper maxilla, or the lower maxilla or the mandible. The importance in such facial injuries, there are two priorities:-

•  One is , the patient should be able to eat, even after these injuries and fractures. Because once these bones are fractured, it becomes very difficult to eat so the main priority is that the patient should be able to eat even after these injuries.
• The second thing is, the lower part of the eye. So, there should be no problem in the vision, as well as the cosmetic outcome. So these bones are put back together anatomically by plating and fixation. So that the patient can lead a normal life, i.e, having a normal vision, and is able to eat properly.

So these are the principles required for practical fixation of complex facial injuries.

Now, to know more about these types of injuries you can get in touch with me on Lybrate. Thank You.