This study comprised 203 patients with maxillofacial injury treated in the Department of Plastic and R.ecorlstructive Surgery at the Kang Nam Sacred Heart Hallym University Hospital between September 1991 and August 1992. With the increasing incidence of high-speed motor vehicle accidents and violent instrument-aided assaults, there has been a concomitent increase in maxillofacial injury. One of the greatest enemies to treat without noticeable cosmetic and functional problems is wound infection. We studies 203 patients, and retrospective study was done for the review and analysis of following issues : sex and age distribution, cause of injury, type of injury, prevallent site of injury, length of laceration, duration from injury to treatment, wound culture and antibiotic sensitivity.
The following results were obtained.
1. Of 203 cases, 26 were contaminated : and 38.5% of these contaminated cases were caused by coagulase negative staphylococcus, and in face of healthy persons, 72% of the normal flora is coagulase negative staphylococcus. Therefore, most of the causative organism of wound contamination in the facial injury corresponded with the normal flora of face.
2. The influencing factors on the positive culture study were type of maxillo-facial trauma, duration from injury to treatment and presence of gross contamination.
3. In antibiotic sensitivity test, kanamycin, gentamicin and cefazoline were sensitive, minocyclin, cefoperazone and bactrim were relatively sensitive and amphicillin and chloramphenicol were resistant.
4. Among 191 cases of simple soft tissue injury, authors treated 142 patients of grossly clean maxillofacial soft tissue injury without antibiotics and only 4 patients(2.8%) suffered from minor infection. Considering these low infection rate, it seems that preventive antibiotic therapy is not necessary to treat maxillofacial soft tissue injuries which are simple and grossly clean.
5. We suggest that antibiotics should be given judiciously in selected cases with positive indications : i. e. grossly contaminated injuries, injuries associated with facial bone fracture, and in which there is delay above 3 hours after injury.
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