title: Treatment of ranula--excision of the sublingual gland versus marsupialization.
abstract: The purpose of this work is to estimate optimum surgical treatment of ranula according to the type of the lesion. Nine patients with ranula surgically treated between 1989 and 2000 were investigated retrospectively. Six patients had sublingual type ranula and three had submandibular type. In five cases including recurrence cases, the sublingual gland was excised. Marsupialization was performed for four cases, which were superficial, protruded and within 2 cm of diameter. In all cases, histopathological diagnoses were pseudocysts without epithelial lining and there was no recurrence. Almost all ranulas are pseudocysts from the sublingual gland, therefore excision of the sublingual gland is considered to be a reasonable and radical treatment. For the small sublingual type, which is superficial, protruding and smaller than 2 cm in diameter, marsupialization is also a useful modification of surgical treatment of ranula.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, Niigata University Faculty of Medicine, Asahimachi 1-757, Niigata 951-8510, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Morita
authors.forename: Katsuro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: Masahiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kawana
authors.forename: Sugata
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takahasi
authors.forename: Fumio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ikarashi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011900:Ranula / Q000601:surgery*; D012008:Recurrence; D012086:Reoperation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013361:Sublingual Gland / Q000601:surgery*; D016896:Treatment Outcome