Airway Management of a Patient with an Acute Floor of the Mouth Hematoma after Dental Implant Surgery in the Lower Jaw.

BACKGROUND: Over the last decades, dental implants have become increasingly popular in the prosthetic rehabilitation of patients. This has subsequently led to an increase of perioperative complications. Obstruction of the airway as a result of a floor of mouth hematoma after dental implant surgery is a rare but life-threatening complication. CASE REPORT: A 62-year-old man presented to the emergency department with a compromised airway caused by a hematoma in the floor of the mouth that occurred during dental implant surgery in the edentulous anterior mandible. Computed tomography angiography images revealed an elevation of the floor of mouth with subsequent occlusion of the airway. In addition, a perforation of the lingual mandibular cortical plate was observed that was caused by two malpositioned dental implants. Awake fiberoptic intubation was immediately performed, the two malpositioned dental implants were subsequently removed, and the patient was extubated after 3 days. WHY SHOULD AN EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN BE AWARE OF THIS?: Perforation of the lingual mandibular cortical plate during dental implant surgery can lead to life-threatening bleeding in the floor of the mouth. This condition can be successfully treated by awake fiberoptic intubation and, if necessary, the malpositioned dental implants can be subsequently removed.

A fluoroscopy-based planning and guidance software tool for minimally invasive hip refixation by cement injection.

PURPOSE: In orthopaedics, minimally invasive injection of bone cement is an established technique. We present HipRFX, a software tool for planning and guiding a cement injection procedure for stabilizing a loosening hip prosthesis. HipRFX works by analysing a pre-operative CT and intraoperative C-arm fluoroscopic images. METHODS: HipRFX simulates the intraoperative fluoroscopic views that a surgeon would see on a display panel. Structures are rendered by modelling their X-ray attenuation. These are then compared to actual fluoroscopic images which allow cement volumes to be estimated. Five human cadaver legs were used to validate the software in conjunction with real percutaneous cement injection into artificially created periprothetic lesions. RESULTS: Based on intraoperatively obtained fluoroscopic images, our software was able to estimate the cement volume that reached the pre-operatively planned targets. The actual median target lesion volume was 3.58 ml (range 3.17-4.64 ml). The median error in computed cement filling, as a percentage of target volume, was 5.3% (range 2.2-14.8%). Cement filling was between 17.6 and 55.4% (median 51.8%). CONCLUSIONS: As a proof of concept, HipRFX was capable of simulating intraoperative fluoroscopic C-arm images. Furthermore, it provided estimates of the fraction of injected cement deposited at its intended target location, as opposed to cement that leaked away. This level of knowledge is usually unavailable to the surgeon viewing a fluoroscopic image and may aid in evaluating the success of a percutaneous cement injection intervention.