Challenges of Dealing with Maxillofacial Injuries in Military Medicine and the Battlefield: A Case Report

Introduction: War trauma is different from civilian trauma in diverse aspects. In fact, the mechanism of war trauma is generally more severe than civilian injuries; therefore, the type of treatment and management of war trauma is completely different. In this article, we address the challenges of dealing with war casualties with facial and oral trauma and how to treat a patient based on evidence-based military medicine.
Case Report: A 25-year-old man was hit by shrapnel after an explosion. On initial examination, there was a wound on the face in the area of the left cheek that opened into the mouth and had several teeth crushed. Severe bleeding from the gums and tongue was evident, and the tongue was cut in half by shrapnel from the base.
Conclusion: In a field hospital, due to a large number of injured, we generally face critical conditions, which means that there is a real need for triage of the injured, but like the civilian crisis, color triage does not make sense, but triage is based on the injured person's need for urgent surgery that should be considered in military medicine. Due to the simultaneous facial injury and the possibility of a chest injury, the main focus was on the airway and breathing of the case, and in the next stage, the tongue was repaired.