Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology, and Endodontology
Oral and Maxillofacial PathologyTransformation of a benign oral pigmentation to primary oral melanoma
Section snippets
Case report
Several medical and dental practitioners provided care for a 38-year-old white woman over a 13-year period, with 7 incisional biopsies, 3 excisional biopsies, and 2 surgical excisions resulting in 14 initial or consultative histopathological diagnoses. The histological diagnoses were made at 5 pathology laboratories (general, oral, and dermatologic) and 3 local hospitals.
Nine formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue blocks were cut and reviewed by 2 oral and maxillofacial pathologists (D.R.W.
Discussion
An English language literature search failed to discover a previously reported case of a histologically documented oral melanotic macule that transformed into primary oral melanoma. However, Taylor and Lewis15 in 1990 reported a case of anterior mandibular gingival melanoma in a 27-year-old white man. The melanoma was histologically documented 5 years previously with a diagnosis of “benign gingival melanosis.” The benign pigmented lesion was described as possessing anastomosing and elongated
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