Removal of miniplates following facial trauma and orthognathic surgery: a 3-year study

The purpose of this study was to determine the cause and risk factors of removing bone plateby investigating and analyzing 359 patients who underwent reduction of fracture or orthognathic surgery with bone plate insertion over the past 3 years. Patients were evaluated with respect to age, smoking status, reason for insertion of plates, the numbers of inserted plates, sites of insertion, time between insertion and removal, reasons for removal of plates. The removal rate of bone plates was 33.1%. Of these, 17.0% of patients had clinical symptoms which led to remove plates. The removal rate of men was 29.9% and the rate of women was 39.2%. There were high removal rates from less than 20s (45.8%) and 20s (34.4%) those who are relatively young age group. On the other hand people in their 50s had a removal rate of 27.8% which was higher than those in their 60s with a rate of 20.7%. The removal rate of bone plate inserted into the mandible was 33.5%, and the removal rate of bone plate inserted into the maxilla was 34.7%. The mean period between the insertion and removal of bone plate was 10.9 months. The main reason for the removal of bone plate was the patient’s requirement (44.5%). The most common cause of clinical symptoms was infection (22.7%). Infection was manifested within about a year and led to the plate being removed. Therefore, lowering the possibility of infection after surgery could decrease the removal rate of bone plate.