Article Text
Summary
Reported is the case of a 79-year-old woman initially diagnosed with periorbital abscess on the background of a recent upper respiratory tract infection. Unexpectedly, intraoperative findings were that of a haematoma rather than an abscess. Subperiosteal orbital haematoma (SOH) is an extremely rare complication of rhinosinusitis. In contrast to the more common periorbital abscess, it is seldom listed as a complication of sinusitis. A review of reported cases suggests an older patient demographic are affected by SOH in contrast to periorbital abscess which typically affects paediatric patients. Given current demographic trends toward an older patient population with multiple comorbidities, failure to consider SOH as a differential will have important implications on preoperative workup, perioperative care and final outcome for patients. We present this case as a reminder of a rare but important complication of a common disease.
- otolaryngology / ENT
- ear, nose and throat/otolaryngology
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Footnotes
Contributors All authors were involved in patient diagnosis and management. MM was responsible for planning, drafting and writing up the case and the literature review. She also liaised with the patient to obtain consent. She wrote the final article in view of the co-authors suggestions and changes. EB contributed to the interpretation of CT imaging both in terms of the figure legends and the ’investigations' subheading of the article when discussing value versus shortcomings of CT scanning. She chose the CT cuts to include in figure 2. She provided valuable comments and review of final draft of the article. OW reviewed and corrected the article throughout the writing process including the final draft. She provided the patient photographs in figure 1 and contributed figure legends as well as discussion of surgical treatment in the Discussion section of the article.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Obtained.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.