Dermoscopy of oral mucocele: three types of extravasation mucoceles

Dermoscopy is a diagnostic tool that assists in imaging the epidermis and dermis. Although it has also started to be used to diagnose nonmelanocytic lesions recently, it has not been tested much on oral mucosal masses, such as oral mucoceles. This study aimed to investigate whether dermoscopy is a valuable tool in diagnosing oral mucoceles.

In this study, the clinical and dermoscopic features of 21 oral mucocele lesions of 21 patients (11 females, 10 males) aged between 6 and 38 years who were confirmed histopathologically were evaluated.

Of the lesions studied, 95.2% (20) were extravasation and 4.8% (1) were retention mucoceles. The nonvascular structures were determined as white areas (61.9%, 13), erythema (57.1%, 12), purplish-gray background (52.3%, 11), ulcer (30%, 8), yellowish- orange areas (23.8%, 5), crust (14.2%, 3), starburst pattern (0.95%, 2), and bleeding (0.47%, 1). Dermoscopically, 40% of extravasation mucoceles were classified as type 1 (8 patients), 25% as type 2 (5 patients), and 35% as type 3 (7 patients).

We concluded that there are 3 types of extravasation mucoceles dermoscopically and clinically, and these types may be stages of transition between each other.