Basic and patient-oriented researchIncidence and Severity of Maxillofacial Injuries During the Second Lebanon War Among Israeli Soldiers and Civilians
Section snippets
Patients and Methods
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) does not have its own hospitals, except for general and specialist out-patient clinics and a rehabilitation hospital. For admission and hospitalization of soldiers, the military medical team evacuates the patient to the nearest civilian general hospital.
This is a retrospective cohort study of patients recorded in the Israel National Trauma Registry (ITR) during the Second Lebanon War, from July 12, 2006, to August 14, 2006. The ITR records all casualty admissions
Results
Maxillofacial injuries were found in 36 (6.4%) of the 565 war-related injuries recorded. Patients were all males, ranging in age from 20 to 44 years (mean, 25.5 ± 5.7 years). Most of the injuries (n = 33; 91.7%) occurred in soldiers and only 3 (8.3%) in civilians (Table 1). All civilian wounds were from missiles.
The etiologies of the maxillofacial injuries are presented in Table 2. There were no civilian-type maxillofacial injuries. Table 3 shows the injury severity according to the ISS
Discussion
Injuries in the facial region during the Second Lebanon War were the third most common among body regions, after lower and upper extremities.9 During that war, 79% and 49% of the severe/critical (ISS ≥16) and minor/moderate (ISS <16) injured soldiers were evacuated by helicopters, respectively, and the remainder evacuated by ground vehicles. Mean evacuation time was 2.5 hours for severe/critical injured soldiers and 6.3 hours for minor/moderate injured.9
The present report of 6.4% maxillofacial
Acknowledgment
The authors thank Ms Rita Lazar for editorial assistance.
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