Sublingual Traumatic Ulceration in a Nine-Year-Old Child: A Case Report

Sublingual traumatic ulceration is a rare inflammatory disorder characterized by benign, ulcerative, and granulomatous processes and caused by repetitive trauma from mandibular anterior incisors to the mucosa of the ventral surface of the tongue. Historically known as the Riga-Fede disease, sublingual ulceration is associated with natal and neonatal teeth in newborns and infants. Even cases have been reported of Riga-Fede disease associated with the eruption of mandibular primary incisors. Commonly, the treatment for Riga-Fede disease is the smoothening of incisal edges or the extraction of offending teeth. If this disorder is not diagnosed early and proper treatment is not provided, it may result in dehydration, nutritional deficiency, and deformity of the tongue. Here, we present a case of sublingual traumatic ulceration in a nine-year-old child, which is a rare occurrence. As the associated teeth in our case were permanent mandibular incisors, we opted for useful instructions to avoid repetitive trauma and medicinal treatment to resolve the lesion rather than extraction of teeth. We opted for topical corticosteroids with multivitamin supplements, which proved effective, and we achieved a positive outcome with complete resolution of the lesion following treatment.