Research Article Biomechanical Evaluation of a Mandibular Spanning Plate Technique Compared to Standard Plating Techniques to Treat

Copyright © 2015 Matthew Richardson et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Purpose. The purpose of this study is to compare the biomechanical behavior of the spanning reconstruction plate compared to standard plating techniques for mandibular symphyseal fractures. Materials and Methods. Twenty-five human mandible replicas were used. Five unaltered synthetic mandibles were used as controls. Four experimental groups of different reconstruction techniques with five in each group were tested. Each synthetic mandible was subjected to a splaying force applied to themandibular angle by a mechanical testing unit until the construct failed. Peak load and stiffness were recorded. The peak load and stiffness were analyzed using ANOVA and the Tukey test at a confidence level of 95 %