[Is surgery for infections of the maxilla and face still justified? (author's transl)]

Based on the authors' studies and on publications by others from the Vienna Department of Maxillo-facial surgery over the past 60 years common infections of the maxilla and face and the incidences and prognosis of their life-threatening complications and reviewed. Fatalities as expected became substantially less frequent after the introduction of antibiotics, but the number of deaths due to septicaemic abscesses in contrast to those due to local complications has fallen only slightly since penicillin usage. The danger of overrating the therapeutic potential of antibiotics is emphasized, and despite major advances in chemotherapy the discrimination between pathologies preferably treated surgically or conservatively has by no means changes.