Abstract
BACKGROUND: We explored postoperative non-surgical site complications in orthognathic surgery (OS) and investigated associations between outcome and patient- and surgery-related variables. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This single-centre (Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Diseases, Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland) retrospective study included patients ≥18 years undergoing OS between January 2016 and December 2022. Data were manually reviewed from the hospital database. Associations with the outcome were analysed using SPSS software (IBM Corporation, 28.0.0.0). RESULTS: Of 429 patients, 16 (3.7%) had a non-surgical site complication, and a total of 19 complications were recognized. A potentially life-threatening somatic complication occurred in 0.7% of patients. The most common complication was severe psychiatric morbidity, constituting 37% of all recognized complications. In the univariate and multivariable regression model, preoperative long-term disease (aOR 4.729; 95% CI 1.510-14.812; p=.008) and alcohol/substance abuse (p=.027) predicted the outcome independently. No other evaluated variables were associated with the outcome. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that severe general complications are rare and are associated with patients' long-term diseases. Severe psychiatric complications comprised a significant proportion of all recognized complications. Attention should be paid to patients' somatic and psychiatric status at all stages of treatment.