Odontogenic and Non-Odontogenic Maxillofacial Infections During COVID-19 Lockdown: Retrospective Analysis

Objectives: To evaluate the impact and effect of COVID-19 lockdown on the epidemiology of maxillofacial odontogenic and non-odontogenic infections at Vilnius University Hospital Zalgiris Clinic.
Methods: Retropective data analysis of patients, presented with odontogenic and non-odontogenic oral and maxillofacial infections during COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 from 03.17-04.17 was performed and compared with the same period in 2019. The followong data were collected from the patients medical records: type and cause of infection, duration of symptoms prior to hospital admission, treatment provided, onset of disease. Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS software, Mann Whitney U test, Student's t test, Pearson’s Chi Square test were used to analyse data, the threshold for statistical significance for all tests was set at p<0.05.
Results: There was a total of 1000 patients included in the analysis (n=703 in 2019 and n=297 patients in 2020). The frequency of maxillofacial infections have significantly decreased during a lockdown period (p<0.05). Significantly less patients were hospitalized during lockdown period (p>0.05), but the hospital stay was significantly longer (2.8_days-2019, 4.7_days-2020, p<0.05).The most common cause of infection was periapical pathology, as a complication of untreated caries lesion (78.8%, n=788). The waiting time after the onset of symptoms was significantly longer during lockdown (4 days compared to 2.4 days, p<0.05). In 2020, significantly more patients required advanced surgical treatment (2019 - n=244 (34.7%); 2020 - n=126 (42,4%), p<0.05).
Conclusions: A national lockdown caused a considerable decrease of patients presenting with odontogenic and non-odontogenic oral and maxillofacial infections. Delays in referral due to lockdown resulted in more severe infections requiring extensive surgical treatment and longer hospital stay.