Characteristics and management of pediatric medial subperiosteal orbital abscesses.

INTRODUCTION

Subperiosteal orbital abscesses (SPOA) are the most common suppurative complications of acute bacterial sinusitis. Medial SPOAs arise from infection of the ipsilateral ethmoid sinus and favor initial conservative management reserving surgical drainage for patients who do not demonstrate clinical improvement. No standard algorithm defining medical versus surgical treatment of medial SPOAs exist in the pediatric population.

OBJECTIVES

To identify a size cutoff for medial SPOAs to predict the likelihood for surgical drainage.

METHODS

This is a retrospective review of patients with medial SPOAs at a tertiary care center from 2003 to 2017. Diagnosis of SPOA was based on radiographic findings. Variables included are patient demographics, antibiotic therapy, surgical intervention, and length of stay.

RESULTS

82 patients with a medial SPOA were included with an average age at presentation of 6.27 (range 0-15) years were included in this study. 62 patients were male (75.6 %), and 20 were female (24.4 %). The average abscess length was 16.1 mm, range 4.5-30.7 mm. The average abscess width was 4.17 mm, range 1.5-14.6 mm. The odds ratio for surgical treatment with every 1 mm increase in abscess width was 1.89 (95CI:1.33-2.69, p < 0.001). Abscesses over 3.6 mm width were 6.65 times more likely to undergo surgical drainage than those less than 3.6 mm (OR:6.65, 95CI:2.52-17.54, p < 0.001). The average(SD) length of stay was 5.4(3.0) days for patients who underwent surgery and 4.0(0.9) days for patients treated with conservative measures, p < 0.001.

CONCLUSION

Medial SPOAs greater than 3.6 mm were more likely to undergo surgical drainage; however there was no difference in the likelihood of drainage between anteriorly and posteriorly based medial abscesses. These findings help further characterize the landscape of pediatric subperiosteal abscesses that are managed with surgical drainage.