Breeze J, Tong D, Gibbons A
Academic Department of Military Surgery and Trauma, Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, Birmingham Research Park, Birmingham B15 2SQ.
Department of Oral Diagnostic and Surgical Sciences, University of Otago, PO Box 647, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Br J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2017 Sep;55(7):661-665. doi: 10.1016/j.bjoms.2017.05.001. Epub 2017 May 20.
Ballistic maxillofacial trauma in the UK is fortunately relatively rare, and generally involves low velocity handguns and shotguns. Civilian terrorist events have, however, shown that all maxillofacial surgeons need to understand how to treat injuries from improvised explosive devices. Maxillofacial surgeons in the UK have also been responsible for the management of soldiers evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan, and in this review we describe the newer types of treatment that have evolved from these conflicts, particularly that of damage-control maxillofacial surgery.
