8. lumps under tongue

An 18-year-old female university student was referred by the Student Health Service after the dental officer spotted some sublingual lesions at a routine dental examination. The patient was symptomless with a clear medical history. There were no cardiorespiratory, bleeding, eating, anogenital, gastro-intestinal, eye, skin, or joint problems. No history of fever or known allergies and medication apart from OCP was reported. Her alcohol consumption was from 5 to 50 units weekly but there was no current tobacco use.

Extra-oral examination revealed no significant abnormalities and specifically no pyrexia, cervical lymph node enlargement, or cranial nerve, salivary, masticatory muscle (masseters, temporalis, medial or lateral pterygoids), or temporomandibular joint abnormalities.

Oral examination revealed a dentition that was basically intact. There was no clinical evidence of periodontal attachment loss or pocketing. Six discrete, painless, white/pink nodules with clear fluid or depressions centrally were noted in the ventral surface of the tongue; four are visible in Figure 1. The right maxillary central incisor was chipped.