Adjacent Flaps for Lower Lip Reconstruction After Mucocele Resection

Abstract

Mucocele forms because of salivary gland mucous extravasation or retention and is usually related to trauma in the area of the lower lip. It is a common benign lesion in the oral region. Although there are many conservative treatments such as the creation of a pouch (marsupialization), freezing (cryosurgery), micromarsupialization, and CO2 laser vaporization, surgical resection is the most commonly used means. Generally speaking, an elliptic incision was made to fully enucleate the lesion along with the overlying mucosa and the affected glands, then direct suturing is adequate. However, in some cases, direct suturing could cause lower lip deformity, and adjacent flaps for lower lip reconstruction after mucocele resection might be quite necessary. Based on our experience, adjacent mucosal flaps could be used when lesions were close to or even break through the vermilion border or their diameters were much more than 1 cm. A-T advancement flaps and transposition flaps were the mostly applied ones. Follow-up showed that all patients realized primary healing after 1 week postoperatively with satisfactory lower lip appearance, and there was no sign of increasing incidence of relapse.