Prevalence of orofacial injuries in contact sports: A systematic review

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to determine, on the prevalence of orofacial injuries among athletes of various contact sports through a systematic review.Materials and Methods: Relevant studies were included from the period of January 1996 to December 2018 via Medline (Pubmed), Cochrane and Google Scholar. A detailed search strategy was developed for Medline through the use of mesh terms and was revised for Google Scholar, Cochrane also. Only full papers written in English were included. Only 8 met the inclusion criteria and were selected for a qualitative synthesis.Result: The various orofacial injuries (fractured tooth, loosening of tooth, hematoma formation, fracture of mandible, TMJ stiffness, loss of sensation, soft tissue laceration, ear laceration, tongue, lip injuries etc). Were assessed and it was observed that the prevalence of orofacial trauma within the included studies varied between 7.1% and 80.5 % among athletes.