Efficacy of endoscopy assisted vs. traditional Orif of Condylar fractures

Condylar fractures are the most common accounting from 9-45 % of all condylar fractures. They can be managed conservatively or by surgical modalities. The advent of the Endoscope in Surgery was an innovation which soon found its way into Maxillofacial Surgery. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the efficacy of endoscopy assisted ORIF vs. traditional ORIF in the treatment of condylar fractures. Information was collected using electronic data sources such as PubMed and Google scholar. 1. The inclusion criteria were studies published in english comparing the Endoscopy assisted ORIF with traditional ORIF for treatment of patients suffering from mandibular condylar fractures. Studies published between 1st January, 1995 and 31st December, 2015 were included. 2. The exclusion criteria were non availability of full length articles and the articles that were not published in english. Patients suffering from condylar fractures were treated with either endoscopy assisted ORIF or traditional ORIF technique. Out of all the articles screened 2 studies were selected after removing of duplicates and assessing full length articles. The studies revealed that both endoscopic approach and traditional ORIF approach comes with their respective set of pros and cons and neither can be called better than the other at this point. The primary limitation encountered during the review was that there are very few studies conducted comparing the Endoscopic and non endoscopic ORIF techniques. The sample sizes in these studies are small and hence it becomes difficult to draw a conclusion regarding the results. Associated with them. Reviewing the current available literature makes the comparison between the two approaches inconclusive. Both the traditional and endoscopic approach for ORIF have comparable results and more studies need to be conducted to compare the two. Once the drawbacks associated with Endoscopy assisted approach are overcome, it can be used by more number of surgeons including the developing countries.