Osteomyelitis of Maxilla: A Rare Presentation Yet Not So Rare

Objective: To retrospectively study the patients diagnosed with osteomyelitis of jaw in Punjab Government Dental College and Hospital, Amritsar.

Material and methods: A total of 21 case records of patients with osteomyelitis of jaw were analysed retrospectively from January 2018 to December 2020 at Department of oral and maxillofacial surgery, Punjab Government Dental College and Hospital, Amritsar, India.

Results: Of the 21 patients, maxilla was involved in 14 (66.6%) patients, whereas 6 patients (28.6%) had mandibular osteomyelitis and 1 patient (4.8%) had osteomyelitis of zygoma. 18 patients had underlying systemic disease with diabetes present in 10 patients (47.6%). History of alcoholism was present in 5 patients (23.8%) as one of the predisposing factors. 14 patients had odontogenic cause as predominant aetiology followed by sinusitis in 3 patients. Osteomyelitis due to post-herpetic and hematogenous infection, trauma and unknown aetiology was found in 1 patient each. With adequate medical and surgical intervention, most of our patients had satisfactory outcome.

Conclusions: High incidence of maxillary osteomyelitis was found in our study in contrary to previous studies and literature. As this is a small study, further prospective studies with longitudinal follow up of larger number of patients would be desirable to confirm these findings.