A 40-year-old woman with no history of trauma or prior surgery presented to the emergency department with headache and left eye pain after nose blowing. Noncontrast maxillofacial computed tomography examination revealed an orbital floor fracture that ultimately required surgical repair. There are nontraumatic causes of orbital blowout fractures, and imaging should be obtained irrespective of tr...

Six patients with blowout fractures of the orbital floor, not associated with infraorbital rim fractures, are presented. Diplopia, infraorbital anesthesia and enophthalmos following blunt trauma to the eye should alert the examiner to the possibility of a blowout fracture with incarceration of extraocular tissues. Early roentgenographic examinations are often difficult to evaluate because of pe...

Figure 1. Intraoperative photo showing the displaced fracture fragment. DESCRIPTION A 55-year-old white man presented with double vision 2 days after low-velocity blunt force–isolated facial trauma. He complained of persistent vertical and horizontal double vision, particularly with inferior and lateral gaze. He had minimal dentition, but he believed that his teeth aligned normally. A computed ...

OBJECTIVE To review our technique of endoscopic transantral repair of orbital floor fractures. STUDY DESIGN Case series with chart review. METHODS All orbital floor fractures treated with the outlined technique from 1998 to 2007 were reviewed in a retrospective fashion. Demographic data, surgical outcomes, and complications were gathered from available patient charts. RESULTS A total of 6...

d d s a ecause of the complex structure of the orbital walls, he fracture patterns vary considerably in their locaion as well as in their degree of severity.1 Multiple ortions of the orbit can be fractured and several nternal orbital walls therefore injured simultaeously. The ideal reconstruction material for orbital floor or all reconstruction should be easy to mold, easy to nchor, biocompatib...

Orbital floor fracture due to vigorous nose blowing in the absence of mechanical trauma is rare, only four cases having previously been reported. In each of these cases, predisposing factors have been identified; preceding URTI in three and a history of sino-nasal surgery in the fourth case. We present the case of a 49-year-old woman who developed a maxillary sinus fracture and orbital emphysem...

A 16-year-old boy presented to the emergency department with the complaint of a sudden, painful left eye and proptosis after an episode of sneezing. A few hours earlier, he had sustained a blunt trauma to the left orbit as the result of a fistfight. The initial examination showed subcutaneous and subconjunctival emphysema. Visual acuity in the left eye was 20/30 (0.67), the pupils were reactive...

BACKGROUND The mechanism of injury and the underlying biomechanics of orbital blowout fractures remain controversial. The "hydraulic" theory proposes that a generalized increased orbital content pressure results in direct compression and fracturing of the thin orbital bone. OBJECTIVE To examine the pure hydraulic mechanism of injury by eliminating the factor of globe-to-wall contact and its p...