[Plunging ranula]

The plunging ranula is a relatively uncommon phenomenon which represents a mucus escape reaction occurring from disruption of the sublingual salivary gland. We present a retrospective study over a 10 years period on patients suffering of plunging ranula treated in Oral and Maxillo-Facial Clinic, resumed by a clinical example. These 7 patients with plunging ranula are related to all the patients operated for ranula in the same period of time in our clinic and were analyzed on age, sex, imaging exploration technique, treatment, and outcome. We found this kind of lesion both in children and young adults, between 10 to 40 years, more frequent on male (1.33/1). Two patients presented only the cervical form of ranula instead of the other five patients (both oral and cervical ranula). Only two of them received IRM examination. All of them received surgical treatment, the approach being cervical; it was removed both the cyst and the sublingual salivary gland. The surveying period, except the last case, was 1 year and includes no recurrences. We consider, besides esthetic loss that the cervical approach of plunging ranula seems to be the optimal access both on lesion and sublingual gland.