Treatment of Posttraumatic Zygomatic Coronoid Ankylosis. Systematic Review.

Facial trauma is mostly associated with traffic accidents, fights, and sports accidents. The mandible, midface, and temporomandibular joint are usually the region's most frequently affected. Coronoid process fractures are rare, representing ∼2% of facial fractures in the literature, usually being the result of direct trauma to the zygomatic region. Due to the anatomical relationship of the coronoid process, it may be associated with other facial fractures, such as fractures of the zygomatic bone. Zygomatic-coronoid ankylosis is a rare clinical entity with variable etiology. It is most commonly associated with trauma (13%-100%), local or systemic infection (0%-53%), or systemic diseases, such as ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid arthritis, or psoriasis. The aim of this research is to evaluate the different treatments for ankylosis from the coronoid process to the zygoma after trauma, allowing to determine the treatment to obtain the best results. A systematic review was carried out following PRISMA "preferred reports for systematic reviews and meta-analyses" search matrix, based on a PICO question; was used PubMed, Embase, Sciencedirect, Cochrane, Google Scholar, and manual search in high-impact journals between 1946 and 2023 publications in English or Spanish, including randomized and nonrandomized clinical trials, prospective and retrospective cohort studies, case-control studies, series, and case reports. A total of 1993 articles were obtained from the 4 databases. After corroborating duplicate articles, 847 articles were excluded. Another 1112 articles were excluded in the title evaluation, and an additional 1093 after the abstract review; a total of 19 articles eligible for full-text evaluation were established and 1 article was added as a result of the manual search. After the full-text review, it was decided to include 16 articles in the study that met the objectives of the systematic review. After evaluating the different treatments described in the literature, the authors can determine that coronoidectomy through an intraoral approach is the most appropriate treatment for zygomatic coronoid ankylosis, accompanied by postoperative physiotherapy to achieve greater oral opening without recurrences.