title: A hemangioma on the floor of the mouth presenting as a ranula.
abstract: A painless, bluish, submucosal swelling on one side of the floor of the mouth usually indicates the presence of a ranula. Rarely, such a swelling may be caused by an inflammatory disease process in a salivary gland, a neoplasm in the sublingual salivary gland, a lymphatic nodular swelling, or embryologic cysts. We report a patient with swelling in the floor of her mouth that was clinically diagnosed as a ranula. Suspicion arose during surgery that it was a vascular tumor and, on histologic testing, the swelling was confirmed to be a hemangioma. To our knowledge, this is the first report in the literature of a hemangioma presenting as a ranula.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, University of Thessaly School of Medicine, Larissa, Greece. skulakis@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Charalampos E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Skoulakis
authors.forename: Lubna
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Khaldi
authors.forename: Demetre
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Serletis
authors.forename: Themistoklis
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Semertzidis
mesh_terms: D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003945:Diagnosis, Oral; D005260:Female; D006391:Hemangioma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D009061:Mouth Mucosa / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D011900:Ranula / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery