Vol.95 No.1 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 95 No. 1 January 2002
Clinical Study and Image Diagnosis of Nasal Bone Fracture
Takenori Ogawa, Naohiro Suzuki and Takuji Okitsu
(Sendai City Hospital)
In this study we reviewed the clinical features, diagnoses and treatments of 232 cases of nasal bone fracture cases treated at our department from January 1994 to June 2000.
A marked predominance of males in the age range of 10-29 years was noted. Analysis of the causes of the nasal fractures were attributed to fighting (66 cases), traffic accidents (64 cases), sports (56 cases) and others (46 cases).
The external appearance of nasal fractures were divided into 5 types, 85 cases of the displacement type, 27 cases of the depressed type, 32 of the mixed type, 56 of the non-deformation type and 32 of the unclassified type because of facial swelling.
The sensitivity of conventional X-ray examination in identifing nasal fractures was 75.6％.
Computed tomography scan (CT scan) was performed in 196 patients and showed that the middle and lower portions of nasal bones were fractured more easily than those of the upper portion.
Nasal septum fracture occurred in 22 cases (11.2％). Other facial fractures combined with nasal fracture were found in 40 cases (20.4％).
The type of combined fracture depended on the cause of the injury, for example, the combination of nasal and blow-out fracture was often caused by fighting, and many combined fractures of more than two facial bones resulted from traffic accidents.
A total of 83 patients (35.8％) received reduction of the nasal bone fractures under general anaesthesia.
The measurement of irradiation of each radiological examination revealed that the exposed dose of the newest model CT was similar to that of the conventional X-ray examination and tomography.
Key words : nasal bone fracture, CT scan, radiology