Background: Panoramic radiography has acquired great diagnostic value given its low cost and its capacity to detect findings that are non-detectable in clinical practice. In maxillofacial surgery, they are useful to monitor major surgical procedures as they enable professionals to detect osteosynthesis materials and thus determine bone diseases with surgical indications. Objective: to determine the prevalence of osteosynthesis material in panoramic radiographs of adult patients, looking for its association with bone defects, surgical pathology, dentofacial anomaly and trauma. Method: 10000 x-rays were evaluated and classified according to sex, age and presumptive diagnosis. Results: there were 173 x-rays with findings of rigid fixation, mostly among women aged between 21 and 30. Men tend to suffer more from trauma, while orthognathic surgery is more prevalent among women. Conclusion: Osteosynthesis material is more often associated with the correction of dentomaxillofacial anomalies in young women, while the rigid internal fixation associated with surgical pathology has low prevalence.