- Case report
- Open access
- Published:
Migratory abscess of the middle ear resulting from an odontogenic infection: an unusual case report
The Egyptian Journal of Otolaryngology volume 34, pages 355–358 (2018)
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Amponsah E, Donkor P. Life-threatening oro-facial infections. Ghana Med J 2007; 41:33–36.
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.
Ryan P, McMahon G. Severe dental infections in the emergency department. Eur J Emerg Med 2012; 19:208–213.
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.
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.
Sicher H. Sicher’s oral anatomy. 3rd ed. St Louis: The C V Mosby company; 1960.
Arun Kumar KV, Deepa D. Migratory and misleading abscess of orofacial region. J Indian Soc Periodontol 2015; 19:470–473.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
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/.
About this article
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
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4103/ejo.ejo_93_17