Periapical lymphoma: Review of reported cases in the literature

Oral lymphoma can resemble clinically to other pathologic entities such as periapical radiolucencies, or dental abscess. The aim of this study was to review the literature related to misdiagnosed periapical lymphomas and discuss their characteristics. In this review study, authenticated search engines and databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, PubMed Central, Science Direct, and Scopus were surfed to find articles related to the topic by using related keywords. Out of more than 100 articles approximately, 50 were closely relevant to the title, and ultimately 43 well-documented English articles were chosen. Out of 45 reported cases, 63% were male and 37% were female with mean age of 41.22 years. The majority of such lesions have been detected in the mandible (61%) with a mandibular to maxillary involvement ratio of 1.58:1. The most frequent type of lymphoma was diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) (53%). Noteworthy, 49% of periapical lymphoma has been misdiagnosed as pulpal pathology and treated through root canal therapy. The mean time lapse before making the correct diagnosis was 4.3 months. Although rare, periapical lymphoma should be ranked in the differential diagnosis of a periapical lesion especially when vitality pulp tests are positive.