Management of Abrasions in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery - A Review

Abstract

Soft tissue injuries, whether isolated or in combination with other injuries, are among the most common traumatic craniofacial injuries encountered by emergency department personnel and maxillofacial surgeons. Despite this high incidence, there are very few studies that systematically investigate the management of these injuries and therefore, there is no widely accepted classification scheme or treatment algorithms to guide evaluation and treatment. As a result, most critical management decisions are left exclusively to the discretion of the treating surgeon with limited prospective or retrospective data, beyond personal experience, available to guide treatment. This may lead to many disparate approaches to both short-term and longterm management. In this review article, we give a brief account of management of facial abrasions, including tetanus prophylaxis, pain assessment, cleaning, definitive closure and dressing of facial abrasions.