A possible inflammatory reaction in a lateral neck cyst (branchial cyst) because of odontogenic infection

Focal Infection

“…Fascial planes A major path of spread is through the fascial planes nearest to the teeth and may lead to parapharyngeal cellulitis (English and Kaiser, 1979), retropharyngeal space infection (Peterson, 1993), infected neck cysts (Smyth and Ward-Booth, 1993;Janicke et al, 1994), descending cervical cellulitis (Cogan, 1973), and mediastinitis, of which there are many reports (McCurdy et al, 1977;Moncada et al, 1978;Hendler and Quinn, 1978;Levine et al, 1986;Garatea-Crelgo and Gay-Escoda, 1991;Esgaib et al, 1992;Petrone, 1992;Zeitoun and Dhanarajani, 1995). Necrotizing mediastinitis may (Steiner et al, 1982;Rubin and Cozzi, 1987) or may not (Economopoulos et al, 1983) be fatal.…”