Skip to main content

Migratory abscess of the middle ear resulting from an odontogenic infection: an unusual case report

Abstract

Infections of odontogenic origin are the commonly encountered diseases in their routine practice by head and neck specialists. Their spread to adjacent fascial spaces may follow as sequelae of untreated odontogenic infections, along a predictable route. Unusually, these infections may follow an uncommon path for the spread and may appear at a distant site in contrast to the site of infection, resulting in the formation of a ‘migratory abscess’. This case report is entitled to present an unusual and rare case of migratory abscess of the right middle ear in a 20-year old male patient, occurring as sequelae of an odontogenic infection in the right lower second molar and to explain a possible route of transmission of infection in this challenging case presentation.

References

  1. Iwasaki Y, Nagata K, Nakanishi M, Natuhara A, Harada H, Kubota Y, et al. Spiral CT fndings in septic pulmonary emboli. Eur J Radiol 2001; 37:190–194.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Zamiri B, Hashemi SB, Hashemi SH, Rafee Z, Ehsani S. Prevalence of odontogenic deep head and neck spaces infection and its correlation with length of hospital stay. Shiraz Univ Dent J 2012; 13:29–35.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Britt JC, Josephson GD, Gross CW. Ludwig’s angina in the pediatric population: report of a case and review of the literature. Int J Pediatr Otorhinolaryngol 2000; 52:79–87.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Kim MS, Kim SG, Moon SY, Oh JS, Park JU, Jeong MA, et al. Sepsis developed from an odontogenic infection: case report. J Korean Assoc Maxillofac Plast Reconstr Surg 2011; 33:445–448.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Zhang C, Tang Y, Zheng M, Yang J, Zhu G, Zhou H, et al. Maxillofacial space infection experience in West China: a retrospective study of 212 cases. Int J Infect Dis 2010; 14:e414–e417.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Amponsah E, Donkor P. Life-threatening oro-facial infections. Ghana Med J 2007; 41:33–36.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Zeitoun IM, Dhanarajani PJ. Cervical cellulitis and mediastinitis caused by odontogenic infections: report of two cases and review of literature. J Oral Maxillofac Surg 1995; 53:203–208.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Ryan P, McMahon G. Severe dental infections in the emergency department. Eur J Emerg Med 2012; 19:208–213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Bali RK, Sharma P, Gaba S, Kaur A, Ghanghas P. A review of complications of odontogenic infections. Natl J Maxillofac Surg 2015; 6:136–143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Arias-Chamorro B, Contreras-Morillo M, Acosta-Moyano A, Ruiz-Delgado F, Bermudo-Añino L, Valiente-Álvarez A. Multiple odontogenic abscesses. Toracic and abdomino-perineal extension in an immuno competent patient. Med Oral Patol Oral Cir Bucal 2011; 16:e772–e775.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Sicher H. Sicher’s oral anatomy. 3rd ed. St Louis: The C V Mosby company; 1960.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Arun Kumar KV, Deepa D. Migratory and misleading abscess of orofacial region. J Indian Soc Periodontol 2015; 19:470–473.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mukesh Soni.

Additional information

This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

Rights and permissions

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kumar, K.V.A., Soni, M. & Dhruvakumar, D. Migratory abscess of the middle ear resulting from an odontogenic infection: an unusual case report. Egypt J Otolaryngol 34, 355–358 (2018). https://doi.org/10.4103/ejo.ejo_93_17

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.4103/ejo.ejo_93_17

Keywords