Mucormycosis of jaws - literature review and current treatment protocols

Mucormycosis is a modern-day lifestyle disease that has burst into the health-care scenario. It is an opportunistic fungal infection that proliferates into the immunocompromised host by invasion of the fungus into the paranasal sinuses, thereby invading the palate, maxilla, and orbit. Left untreated it invades the cranial components such as cavernous sinus, skull base, and brain. Mucormycosis invades blood vessels, making these infections highly angioinvasive. We reviewed 45 cases of mucormycois of the head-and-neck region from 2010 to 2020 on the basis of electronic search peer-reviewed journals in Medline (PubMed) database. Presenting symptoms, risk factors, history of extraction, and treatment were tabulated and the data were analyzed. The mean age of patients was 53.8 years. 73.93% of patients had diabetes mellitus, 13.63% of patients had no immunocompromised state, and 8.74% of patients had other medical disorders. About 34.78% of cases had a history of extraction prior to manifestation of symptoms. Mucormycosis remains difficult to treat disease with a high mortality rate. At present, the triad of clinician's awareness, appropriate antifungal therapy, and aggressive surgical intervention represents treatment protocols against the disease.