Conservative and surgical treatment of mandibular and maxillary fractures in 54 horses

Fifty-four horses with mandibular and/or maxillary fractures were referred for treatment over a twelve par time period. The fracture was recent in 48 cases. The remaining six animals had an older and poorly healing fracture. In 26 cases, a conservative treatment was applied. This included extraction of loosened teeth in recent fractures and curettage of fistula in older fr actures, followed in all cases by treatment with antibiotics. In 28 horses, surgery was performed. Twenty-six of them were treated with cerclage. In t he remaining two horses, an amputation of the rostral part of the mandible was performed. Follow-up results could only be obtained for 42 horses (19 c onservative, 2 surgical). Healing was considered satisfactory when the anim als only showed clinically insignificant abnormalities such as slight maloc clusion or the absence of incisor teeth. Overall, perfect or satisfactory h ealing was obtained in 93% of the cases. Surgical treatment resulted in a h igher percentage of perfect results (61%) compared to conservative treatmen t (37%). Apparently, the fracture localisation had no influence on the fina l outcome. Despite the serious contamination of some open fractures, abceda tion or fistulation were only occasionally reported as complications.