Temporalis space infection secondary to an undiagnosed intra-oral foreign object – a case report

The penetration of foreign objects is one of the leading causes of maxillofacial infection following trauma. Failure to detect such objects at initial stages can lead to complications like abscess formation, cellulitis, or space infections. Detection is even more complicated if the patient presents to the maxillofacial center after a delay of days or weeks following trauma. Sole reliance on radiographs or CT can be inconclusive as most of these objects are radiolucent and can be difficult to detect even by the experienced radiologists. We report the case of a patient who had an unwitnessed trauma and presented to our center 7 days after the incident, with signs of buccal space infection. Failure to detect the embedded intra-oral wooden object at an earlier stage led to the propagation of infection to superficial temporal space. The management strategy and pitfalls associated with conventional imaging in detecting wooden object are discussed.