Pott's puffy tumor

Abstract

Sir Percival Pott (1714-1788) was a surgeon of St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London who wrote a large number of treatises on subjects as varied as orthopedics, urology, and neurosurgery [6]. In 1760, he produced his Observations on the Nature and Consequences ofWounds and Contusions of the Head, Fractures of the Skull, Concussions of the Brain, etc. In this work he described "a puffy, circumscribed, indolent tumor of the scalp, and a spontaneous separation of the pericranium from the scull (sic.) under such a tumor" [3].Hence was born the alliterative appellation, Pott's Puffy Tumor. While originally described as a consequence of head trauma, this entity has become more commonly associated with complications of frontal sinusitis. The classic use of the Greek term "tumor" for swelling is rarely used today, instead having a modern connotation of a neoplasm. As defined by Pott, this "tumor" or swelling of the forehead is formed by a subperiosteal abscess. Pott termed this infectious collection as "matter" and went on to observe that it often appeared with "inflammation of the dura mater and the formation of matter between it and the skull" [2]. Patients with subperiosteal abscesses of the frontal bone typically demonstrate focal necrosis of the frontal bone as well. Thus intracranial and osteomyelitic complications of frontal sinusitis are often associated with what Pott originally described as a "puffy tumor.". © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.