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Increasing Rate of Pott's Puffy Tumor Hospitalizations Among US Children
Anne K Jackson1,2, Qing Duan3, Kelly Patterson4
1Division of Hospital Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Hospital Pediatrics
|August 13, 2026
Summary
Hospitalizations for Pott's puffy tumor, a rare sinusitis complication, have doubled in US children. Surgical interventions for this condition also significantly increased between 2017 and 2025.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Otolaryngology
- Infectious Disease Epidemiology
- Hospital Medicine
Background:
- Pott's puffy tumor is a rare but serious complication of sinusitis, involving frontal bone osteomyelitis and subperiosteal abscess.
- While sinusitis complications may have risen post-pandemic, trends in Pott's puffy tumor incidence were unknown.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the hospitalization rate of Pott's puffy tumor in US children.
- To analyze trends in clinical characteristics and treatment of pediatric Pott's puffy tumor cases from 2017 to 2025.
Main Methods:
- A cross-sectional epidemiological study was conducted using the Epic Cosmos database.
- Included were pediatric patients (0-21 years) hospitalized with Pott's puffy tumor and treated with antibiotics between 2017 and 2025.
- Annual hospitalization rates and patient demographics/clinical data were analyzed, comparing early and later periods.
Main Results:
- 601 pediatric cases of Pott's puffy tumor were identified across 170 US hospitals.
- The hospitalization rate increased from 2.8 to 6.0 per 100,000 hospitalizations between 2017 and 2025.
- The proportion of patients requiring surgery rose significantly from 37% (2017-2019) to 60% (2022-2025).
Conclusions:
- Pott's puffy tumor hospitalizations in children, while rare, have notably increased.
- There has been a significant rise in the need for surgical intervention for this condition.
- Further research is needed to understand the causes behind the increasing incidence of Pott's puffy tumor.
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