Management of atrophic mandible fractures: an updated comprehensive review

Objectives With advances in healthcare leading to longer life expectancy, the edentulous geriatric population is increasing. Expectantly, head and neck trauma surgeons will encounter atrophic (edentulous) mandible fractures in their practice. The objectives of this paper are to review the prevalence, etiology, and diagnosis of atrophic mandible fractures with a descriptive discussion on the different methods of treatment. Materials and Methods The review included a search using PubMed (National Library of Medicine, NCBI) and Medline from 1950–2016 with keywords such as “atrophic mandible” with the addition of the words fracture and computerised guided technology and Virtual Surgical Planning (VSP). Results This search produced 499 articles. Of those 499 articles, 18 were included in this critical review. Management discussion identified papers to provide the most powerful evidence in the decreasing order of strength by cohort studies, case-control studies, surveys, and case-series. The update provides new information on virtual surgical planning that will assist in time under general anaesthesia for complex case management. Conclusions A comprehensive update reviewed all forms of treatment from soft diet to open reduction with computerised technology to provide head and neck trauma surgeons a better basis for clinical management of these fractures.