Abstract
Oral and pharyngeal trauma occurs often in children six years old and younger, and the toothbrush is one of the main causes. In 2010, five cases of trauma caused by a toothbrush, in which all patients were hospitalized and received intravenous antibiotics, were treated at out hospital. In three, abscesses formed and required drainage. In one case, the abscess in what was thought to be a pharyngeal constrictor muscle from the tonsillar fossa of an extracted palatine tonsil was drained. All five cases have been documented and reported.
The result indicates a high rate of abscess formation along with toothbrush trauma. This phenomenon is thought to be caused by the external force transmitted directly by the toothbrush, without protection from the lips or teeth, which allows a deep pricking, when large quantities of oral bacteria such as Streptococcus milleri group bacteria are on the brush. It is therefore thought that toothbrush trauma causes abscesses in places where abscesses do not form naturally Furthermore, it is assumed that in cases of toothbrush trauma in which abscesses have not formed, the puncture would have been by the toothbrush handle and not the brush itself.
