key: cord-0861569-xiqn0vwj
authors: Samara, Elpida; Paul, Rajat; Ko, Yui Yin; Ameerally, Phillip
title: The effect of COVID-19 outbreak on hospital admissions for dental infections
date: 2021-01-18
journal: nan
DOI: 10.1016/j.adoms.2021.100025
sha: 987fe9321e0b34e943dcd7e37eb73462707a9895
doc_id: 861569
cord_uid: xiqn0vwj

Cervicofacial infections of dental origin can cause life threatening emergency and we were anticipating that the prevalence of hospital admissions for this reason between the 26 th of March 2020 until the 8 th of June 2020 that the dental practices were closed would increase. We conducted a retrospective analysis of the hospital admissions for cervicfacial infections of dental origin during this period and the results were compared with the admissions the same period last year. Surprisingly there were less admissions in 2020 compared to 2019 which can be attributed to the government guidance to ‘’Stay at home”, “Save lives”, “Protect the NHS’’ and the treatment provided by the Urgent Dental Care Centers that reduced the pressure on the country’s health care system. Proportionaltely more admissions in 2020 were attributed to dental abscess from mandibular teeth compared to 2019 but there was a small decrease in the incision and drainage under general anaesthetic and a small increase in the length of the hospital stay in 2020.

Cervicofacial infections of dental origin can be life threatening as they can progress rapidly, 48 spread to other diastemas obstructing the airway, cause sepsis and death 8, 9, 10, 11 . On the other hand, patients may have early infections but because of complex barriers to 50 dental treatment they are unable to have outpatient dental care 9 . Therefore, during the period 51 from the 23 rd of March till the 8 th of June that the dental practices were closed and the dentists 52 were unable to provide any aerosol generating procedures, there was a concern that dental 53 abscesses would increase and subsequently infections would progress rapidly needing 54 treatment in secondary care 11 .

The aim of this paper is to assess the hospital admissions with a main diagnosis of dental 

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