Oral Surgery Leads to Muscular Necrosis

Case Overview

This case takes place in Nebraska and involves a female patient who developed an abscess following a dental crown procedure who, despite attempts at incision and drainage of the abscess, developed sepsis and eventual multi-system organ failure and death. At autopsy, the original wound which had undergone the incision and drainage procedure was clean with rubbing tubing in place. However, purulent material had tracked from the original site of abscess along the right mandible into the temporalis region on the right side and showed underlying necrosis of the temporalis muscle.