Evaluation of changes in paraclinical indexes due to intermaxillary fixation

One of the treatment techniques for mandibular and midface fractures is intermaxillary fixation (IMF), but treatment with IMF interferes with normal nutrition, and malnutrition can affect the result of the treatment and patient’s recovery.
Paraclinical factors including lipid profile and protein profile indexes which are diagnostic for malnutrition were evaluated in this study to point out how treatment with IMF changes these indexes. In this study, 60 patients were treated with 4 weeks of IMF, the lipid profile and protein profile indexes for these patients were measured before and after the treatment.
The albumin (Alb) decreased during this period, but a slight increase was shown in the hemoglobin (Hb) level. All lipid profile indexes such as low-density lipoprotein (LDL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), triglyceride (TG), and total cholesterol (TC) decreased during this period but not statistically significant.
Treatment with IMF could cause a malnutrition situation although not severe, which makes using nutrition supplements considerable in these cases.