Quantitative assessment of orbital fractures; Usefulness of the measurement of orbital volume from the CT images; A preliminary report

Avoiding posttraumatic enophthalmos, there are few criteria for determining surgical indications of orbital fractures. We considered introducing an original criterion for surgical indications of orbital fractures using CT analysis of orbital volume. First, we measured the orbital volume of the nontraumatic group and the traumatic group, to investigate the differences between both sides of the orbits in the non-traumatic group and also the reproducibility between the pre- and post-operative analysis on the unaffected side in the traumatic group. The results revealed that the volume difference was not significant between both sides of orbits in the non-traumatic group. And also, in the traumatic group, it was revealed that the orbital volume on the unaffected side was identical between pre- and post-surgical CT imaging analysis. These data suggest that we can estimate volumetric change of the affected orbit from the non-affected side, and that we can compare the volumes between chronologically different orbits. The results of this study suggest that analysis of orbital volume offers a new criterion for determining surgical indications of orbital fractures avoiding posttraumatic enophthalmos.