CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19)
IMAJ | volume 27
Journal 5, May 2025
pages: 275-277
Potts Puffy Tumor Drainage with Needle Aspiration: A Case Series of Three Adult Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic
1 Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and Maxillofacial Surgery, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel
2 Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, Hadera, Israel
3 Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
4 Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Nottingham University Hospitals, Nottingham, UK
Summary
Pott’s Puffy tumor (PPT) is a rare complication of frontal sinusitis, involving a subperiosteal abscesses with associated osteomyelitis of the frontal sinus anterior table. It mainly affects children and adolescents but can also occur in adults. It presents with localized forehead swelling, pain, fever, headache, and sometimes intracranial complications like epidural or subdural abscesses [1,2]. The standard treatment for PPT typically involves surgical drainage under general anesthesia and broad-spectrum intravenous antibiotics. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (March–June 2020), delayed surgeries and resource limitations led to the use of minimally invasive techniques [3] such as needle aspiration without general anesthesia. In this study, we present three adult PPT cases from Nottingham University Hospitals, United Kingdom, treated with early abscess aspiration during this period.
We conducted retrospective study of PPT cases presented during the early COVID-19 pandemic. Following patients’ consent, case notes were reviewed for baseline demographics, previous treatments, presenting symptoms, and examination findings.