Eight-year retrospective study of odontogenic origin infections in a postgraduation program on oral and maxillofacial surgery

Abstract

Purpose: Infections are one of the most commonly found conditions in oral and maxillofacial surgery practice. They always represent a risk to patients regardless of whether they are of odontogenic origin or not, and if not treated at an early stage they may rapidly evolve and spread to adjacent anatomical structures, leading to serious complications and, occasionally, to death. For this reason, the objective of this study was to retrospectively analyze data from patients with infections attended by the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of the Piracicaba Dental School at the State University of Campinas-Unicamp.

Patients and methods: In accordance with date and inclusion criteria, sampling comprised 210 patient reports from January 1999 to March 2007. Patients' demographic data reviewed were gender, age, signs and symptoms, facial spaces affected, and therapy adopted.

Results: The mean age of patients was 30 years old (SD = 16.6), and the main origin of infections was odontogenic (79.31%); principal signs and symptoms were trismus (43.33%), fever (28.10%), and dysphagia (25.24%). The main facial spaces affected were the buccal mandibular space (50.00%), submandibular space (31.90%), and buccal maxillary space (19.05%). Surgical drainage was carried out in 46.67% of cases, and 10.95% of these interventions were performed under general anesthetic. Only 3 of all patients developed complications.

Conclusions: Infection patients were basically young adults; no predisposition concerning gender or race was detected. The therapeutic protocol adopted presented very positive results, with a small number of complications.