The incidence of zygomatic complex fracture is relatively high. A thorough understanding of the diagnosis and the surgical principles are of critical importance. The zygomatic bone provides the facial appearance, through its cheek prominence. This prominence plays an important role in the protection of the eye. Moreover, the zygomatic bone acts as a strong buttress for the absorption and transmission of masticatory forces to the base of skull. Therefore, the optimum reduction and rigid fixation is of extreme importance.
1.2 Anatomy:
The zygomatic bone occupies a protuberant position in the facial skeleton and it acts as a protective measure to the eye. It also serves as normal facial width and prominence (Joseph & Glavas, 2011). The zygomatic bone has four processes which are the frontal, temporal, maxillary and the infraorbital rim. These processes articulate with frontal bone, temporal bone, maxillary bone and the sphenoid bone. A zygomatic complex fracture is defined when all the four articulations are fractured. The frontal projection of the zygomatic bone attaches the frontal bone and the zygomatic bone at the zygomatico-frontal …show more content…
An Absence of visual threatening injuries or any other emergency that necessitate an immediate surgical intervention, surgical management of zygomatic complex fractures can be delayed. Delayed surgery can help resolving of the facial swellings to have a better surgical management. Pushing the surgical intervention to a period between 5-7 days will not have a serious or a devastating impact on the result. However, it should bear in mind that a delay more than 2 weeks will allow the fracture to consolidate and subsequently will have greater resistance to reduce to its normal position (Hollier, et al., 2010) (Ellstrom & Evans,