Palatal schwannoma in a young female patient: report of a case and review of the literature.

BACKGROUND: A few cases of oral schwannomas in paediatric patients have appeared in the literature so far; however, there are no studies focusing solely on paediatric oral schwannomas. The aim of this study is to report a case of palatal schwannoma in a young female patient and review the pertinent literature on oral schwannomas in paediatric patients. CASE REPORT: A 12-year-old girl presented with a growing swelling of 2 weeks duration on the hard palate. With a provisional diagnosis of a salivary gland neoplasm an incisional biopsy was performed under local anesthesia and the histologic examination disclosed an Antony A type schwannoma. TREATMENT: Complete surgical resection of the lesion was performed under local anaesthesia through a palatal mucosa incision and paraffin gauze was sutured on the surgical area for protection during secondary healing. The bone underlying the tumor was normal. The postoperative period was uneventful and 2 weeks after excision the gauze were removed. FOLLOW-UP: There have been no signs of recurrence during a 18-month follow up period. CONCLUSION: A palatal swelling in a child or adolescent may represent a neoplasm, such as a schwannoma and requires careful clinical and radiographic evaluation of the dentition.

Oral verruciform xanthoma: Report of 13 new cases and review of the literature.

BACKGROUND: Oral verruciform xanthoma (OVX) is a rare lesion. The purpose of the present study is to describe the clinical features of 13 OVXs and review all cases reported in the English literature. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Thirteen cases of OVX diagnosed during a 47-year period were retrospectively collected. The patients gender and age, as well as the main clinical features of the lesions were retrieved from the biopsy request forms. Pubmed, Scopus and Google ScholarTM electronic databases were searched with the key word verruciform xanthoma. Only cases of histologically confirmed OVX were included in the study. RESULTS: The 13 OVXs represented approximately 0.04% of 35,617 biopsies accessioned during the study period. They affected 13 patients, 8 males and 5 females with a mean age of 48.8±14 years. They mainly appeared as asymptomatic granular nodules or plaques, with elastic or normal consistency and white color, in the gingiva or hard palate. Literature review yielded 416 cases of OVX. With the addition of cases of the present study, 429 cases of OVX have been presented in the English literature. OVX has a slight male predominance with a male to female ratio of 1.4:1 and the majority of patients are in the 5th to 7th decade of life. Clinically, OVX mainly presents as an asymptomatic, single, papillary or granular plaque or nodule, with elastic or soft consistency and white, red or pink color. It measures approximately 1cm and is most commonly located on the gingiva, tongue, hard palate or buccal mucosa. The treatment of choice is surgical excision with little rates of recurrence. CONCLUSIONS: Verruciform xanthoma is a rare lesion most often encountered on the ginigival mucosa. As its clinical presentation is not pathognomonic, it should be included in the differential diagnosis of verrucous or papillary lesions.

Localized gingival enlargements. A clinicopathological study of 1187 cases.

BACKGROUND: To describe the incidence, demographic and clinical features of 1187 localized gingival enlargements. MATERIAL AND METHODS: 1187 cases of localized gingival enlargements diagnosed during a 20-year period were retrospectively collected. The patients' gender and age, as well as the main clinical features of the tumors were retrieved from the biopsy report forms. RESULTS: The 1187 localized gingival enlargements represented 6.23% of 19.044 biopsies performed during the study period. 756 females and 427 males were affected with a mean age of 41.92±19.68 years. The lesions appeared as smooth (52.4%), granular (17.9%) or rough (13.16%) tumors, elastic (50.73%) or soft (29.56%) in consistency and red (60.8%), normal (28.58%) or white (8.17%) in color. The majority of the lesions (85.17%) were reactive in origin with pyogenic granuloma being the most common. In 1.1% of the cases a diagnosis of malignant lesion was rendered. CONCLUSIONS: All localized gingival enlargements should be submitted for microscopic examination because in approximately 1% of cases they are malignant.