Background and objective.

Malar fractures have been described as the most frequent facial fractures after nasal ones. These are frequently associated with traffic accidents. In our environment we do not have studies that explore the characteristics of this condition.

Our objective is to characterize the conditions associated with malar fractures in the city of Cali, Colombia.

Methods.

A descriptive observational study is carried out in patients who consult at the Hospital Universitario del Valle and are cared for by the Plastic Surgery Section between August 2019 and March 2020, with a diagnosis of malar fracture in the facial scan. The variables age, sex, origin, education, occupation, marital status, mechanism of trauma, city of trauma, classification of malar fractures, laterality, fracture of the zygomatic arch and associated facial fractures were recorded. Analysis of the management of fractures is not included.

Results.

We identified 25 malar fractures in 24 patients; 88% in people over 18 years old; 83.3% were men; the age group with the most cases were 21-30 years old (25%); the most common cause was blunt trauma (50%), followed by falls (21%) and traffic accidents (21%). Type 3 malar fracture impacted according to Knight and North was the most common (36%).

Conclusions.

Blunt trauma is the most frequent cause of malar fracture in our study. The information obtained can be useful for the local authority to consider strategies to reduce its incidence. When classifying the fracture pattern, a single type of fracture is often not found and, on the contrary, there were combinations which leads us to think that a new classification is required.

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