Mandibular fractures that have healed are not weakened permanently: series of nine patients who sustained mandibular fractures at different sites on two separate occasions

Some patients are concerned that after satisfactory healing of a mandibular fracture the jaw will be weaker than it was before the injury, and will break readily at the same site after relatively minor injury. We aimed to find out if these concerns have any basis, and report the pattern of fracture in a series of nine patients who had sustained fractures of the jaw on two separate occasions. All fractures were at different sites from the original ones, and in only one case was the fracture adjacent to plates that had been placed previously. Once a mandibular fracture has healed, the bone at the fracture site is not obviously weaker from a clinical perspective than it was before the injury.