Loreto Espinosa; Constanza Faúndez; Catherine Sandoval; Saúl Tirado & Ignacio Roa
Summary
Occurrences of lesions in the oromaxillofacial region acquire importance due to their complicated anatomy and physiology, which may result in facial deformities, acquiring interest when caused by a third party, and may have legal repercussions. The objective was to carry out a crosssectional study in order to estimate the frequency and typing of oro-maxillofacial injuries that required forensic expertise in the Legal Medical Service of Curicó, Chile. Encrypted data was collected from 79 records of patients between 17-88 years who made their findings of injuries in the Medical Legal Service of Curicó, Chile, in the lapse of one year. The frequency of injuries with forensic expertise in the oro-maxillofacial region was 25.82 %, caused mainly by physical mechanism. Mostly made to individuals of the male sex, with an age range of between 20 to 40 years. Interpersonal violence was observed as the most frequent causal agent of injuries, followed by traffic accidents. The subjects trained by intrafamily violence were all women. The most recurrent injuries were fracture and contusion, within which we found a nasal fracture as the most frequent, followed by a contusive wound, a cutting instrument wound, a maxillary fracture and finally a dental fracture. Of the totality of the lesions under study, only one third were confined exclusively in the oro-maxillofacial territory.
KEY WORDS: Forensic dentistry, maxillofacial injury.
How to cite this article
ESPINOSA, L.; FAUNDEZ, C.; SANDOVAL, C.; TIRADO, S. & ROA, I. Oro-maxillofacial injuries in the Medical Legal Service of Curicó, Chile: Descriptive study. Int. J. Odontostomatol., 13(4):379-384, 2019