Aetiology of Fractures
The main causes of maxillofacial injuries are road accidents, assaults, falls and sport injuries but the proportion of these has changed over the last three decades and continues to do so.  The table below shows this.

Table 1

	Rooksdown house 1948 - 1955	Rooksdown/QueenMary's 1955 - 1965	Queen Mary's 1974 - 1980	Royal West sussex 1974 - 1981	Royal West Sussex 1982 - 1987	Royal West Sussex 1988 - 1993
Aetiology	500 cases	1000 cases	500 cases	407 cases	525 cases	327
Traffic accidents	46.8	41.2	23.5	45.2	34.7	18.5
Fights	18.6	25.6	29.5	21.6	25.1	33.3
Falls	12	15	21	15	19	26.3
Sport	8	9.1	16.5	8.8	14.9	16.7
Misc.	14.6	9.1	9.5	9.3	6.3	5.1