Abstract:

Objective

To investigate the phenotypes， misdiagnosis and the clinical differential diagnosis of lymphomas in oral and maxillofacial region.

Methods

Retrospective study was made on all 29 cases with oral and maxillofacial lymphomas in our department from Jan.1991 to Mar.2008. From Jan. 1991 to Jun. 2008， the references about oral and maxillofacial lymphomas were collected from CHKD. We analyzed these references to find commonly clinical features of this tumor.

Results

The patients with lymphomas have a wide range of age. The youngest patient is 11 months， and the oldest one is 86 years old. The average age is 50.2. Males are more than females， the ratio is 1.26∶1. Lymphomas is often found in cervial part （20.1%），submaxillary region （16.8%）， parotid gland （11.4%）， pars palatalis （10.3%） and so on. It is easy to be misdiagnosed as chronic inflammation of lymphonodes， metastatic carcinoma， or lymph tuberculosis due to their muti- phenotypes such as masses （74%）， ulcer and necrosis （13.9%），inflammatory infiltration（7.3%）， erythemoid nodules（1.5%）， etc. NHL（90.5%） is more than HL（9.5%） according to the pathological classification of lymphomas. Among NHL， the type of B cell（83%） is more than T cell（17%）.

Conclusions

Misdiagnosis in oral and maxillofacial lymphomas is very common in clinic due to it's multi-manifestation. The differential diagnosis should be emphasized clinically. And the suspicious cases should be diagnosed definitely through pathological examination.

Key words: Lymphoma, Oral and maxillofacial region, Clinical features, Differential diagnosis