Surgical and supportive management in Ludwig's Angina

Abstract

This study aims to describe, in the light of the scientific literature, the surgical and supportive approach in the treatment of Ludwig's Angina. This is an exploratory descriptive study of an integrative literature review. For its idealization, descriptors registered in the Descriptors in Health Sciences (DeCS) and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) were interconnected through the Boolean operators “AND” and “OR” and applied in the pubmed databases through the Online System of Search and Analysis of Medical Literature (Medline), in addition to Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS) and Google Scholar. With the search, 332 studies were located, after analyzing the eligibility criteria adopted, 18 were included in the final sample. Among the results obtained, the most frequent symptoms were fever, facial and neck edema, limited mouth opening, swelling and localized pain in teeth with or without fractures and with the presence of carious lesions. Men aged between 60 and 75 years were the most prone to complications from the infection, staying for an average of 28 days in Intensive Care Units (ICU). The demand for specialized care at the hospital ranged between 2 and 3 days, with the infection being characterized as a rapid increase. Thus, studies suggest that antibiotic therapy, choice of airway access, surgical management and adequate multidisciplinary support can reduce mortality rates and generate a gradual recovery with greater efficiency for the patient.