DAMAGE-CONTROL SURGERY IN SEVERE MAXILLOFACIAL TRAUMA: A PRAGMATIC SCOPING REVIEW OF INDICATIONS, HEMORRHAGE CONTROL, TEMPORARY STABILIZATION, AND TRANSITION TO DEFINITIVE RECONSTRUCTION

Background: Damage-control surgery (DCS) is established in major trauma, but its application to severe maxillofacial injury remains poorly standardized. Life threatening facial hemorrhage, physiologic instability, major contamination, and complex skeletal disruption may require abbreviated treatment before definitive reconstruction. Objective: To map the clinical evidence on indications for maxillofacial damage - control management, emergency hemorrhage control, temporary stabilization, and transition to definitive reconstruction. Methods: A pragmatic scoping review informed by JBI guidance and reported with reference to PRISMA ScR was performed. MEDLINE/PubMed and Scopus were searched from inception to 9 September 2026 without date restriction using complementary routes for explicit damage-control terminology, major hemorrhage, temporary or staged fixation, and ballistic or high-energy trauma. The searches yielded 2,191 records; 1,601 remained after deduplication. Structured text prioritization supported screening against predefined clinical criteria. Sixty-seven reports underwent detailed eligibility assessment, and 35 primary clinical reports with sufficiently extractable, nonredundant data formed the core evidence map. No meta-analysis or formal risk-of-bias scoring was planned.