Chirurgia delle lesioni dei tessuti molli del cavo orale: diagnosi differenziale con le neoformazioni maligne

Many benign lesions can arise from oral soft tissues: they are inflammatory lesions like pyogenic granuloma or papillary hyperplasia and benign neoplasms as minor salivary gland adenoma or nodular fasciitis. All of these lesions have similar clinical presentation: they usually present as painless mass of the oral soft tissues associated with overlying skin and oral mucosa that are intact; in other cases the lesions involve the oral mucosa that can be ulcerated and bleeding. The differential diagnosis of all of these lesions among them and with malignant primitive and metastatic tumours can be very difficult because of their clinical presentation and instrumental examinations that are often equivalent. In this research project the author has evaluated and followed 63 patients that presented to the Maxillo-Facial Unit of the University of Sassari in the period fom 2006 until 2008 with benign lesions of the oral soft tissues. The most frequent lesion was the squamous papilloma, then in descending order the patients presented benign histiocytoma, pyogenic granuloma, minor salivary gland adenoma, peripherical ossifying fibroma, solitary fibrousus tumour and oral mucinosis. The author has demonstrated that the histologic examination of a preoperative biopsy or of the entire lesion, if its dimension are less than 2 cm, is the only possibility to make the right diagnosis and to decide the correct treatment.