Tongue base hamartoma in a child

Abstract

On July, 19, 2010, a girl aged 1 year and 5 months presented to our outpatient clinic with an incidentally found granular mass at the left tongue base. She had been a full-term (gestational age 38 weeks) baby, and her birthweight had been about 2600 g; there had been no perinatal insults. The results of thyroid function tests were all within normal limits (triiodothyronine 1.86 nmol/L, thyroxine 4.72 mg/dL, thyroid-stimulating hormone 3.33 mIU/ml, thyroglobulin 38.2 mg/L). Magnetic resonance imaging of the head and neck showed an ill-defined, approximately 1.1 cm 0.5 cm in diameter soft tissue lesion with intermediate signal intensity on T1-weighted with contrast at the left side of the tongue base next to the left tonsillar fossa. The girl subsequently received tumor excision under general anesthesia. A pedunculated tongue base tumor measuring 1.5 cm 0.6 cm 0.5 cm was excised (Fig. 1A and 1B). Microscopically, this showed smooth muscle proliferation, confirmed by immunohistochemical staining for desmin and smooth muscle actin, with surrounding seromucinous glands accompanied by focal adipose tissue. There were no atypical or malignant cells (Fig. 1C and 1D). At follow-up in the outpatient clinic about 1 year later, the wound was seen to have healed well without signs of recurrence. From a histopathological viewpoint, tongue tumors in children can be classified as solid tumors, excretory cysts, lymphovascular masses, and reactive epithelial lesions. A previous review of 135 pediatric tongue lesions showed