Surgical Management of the Recent Orbital War Injury

Maxillofacial trauma affects sensitive and essential functions for the human being such as smell, breathing, talking, and the most importantly the sight. Trauma to the orbit may cause a vision loss especially if this trauma yields a high kinetic energy like that encountered during wars. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the surgical outcomes of the orbital war trauma, enriching the literature with the experience of the authors in this field. A total of 16 patients were injured, evacuated, and managed, between June 2014 and June 2017, from the fight between the Iraqi army and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in different areas of Iraq. Two-stage protocol was adopted, that is debridement and reconstruction. There were 14 military patients and 2 civilians. The cause of trauma was either bullet or shrapnel from an explosion. In the battlefield, delayed evacuation of the casualties led to increase the morbidity and mortality. Wearing a protective shield over the eye during the war along with fast evacuation highly improved the survival rates. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Saif Saadedeen Abdulrazaq, BDS, FIBMS, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, College of Dentistry, University of Baghdad, Bab-Almoadham, P.O. Box 1417, Baghdad, Iraq; E-mails: saifdento@gmail.com; drsaif.sa@codental.uobaghdad.edu.iq Received 9 November, 2017 Accepted 11 March, 2018 The authors report no conflicts of interest. © 2018 by Mutaz B. Habal, MD.

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