Unifocal lymphomas of the oral cavity

The diagnosis of unifocal oral lymphomas is not easy and yet, a retrospective review of the malignancies diagnosed by the University of Birmingham Department of Oral Pathology, indicates that lymphoma is the third most commonly diagnosed malignant lesion in the oral cavity. In a separate study of all the cases of unifocal oral lymphomas which are recorded in the Birmingham and West Midland Cancer Registry for the period 1957-1976, lymphomas were found in the cheek, the lip, the tongue, the alveolus, the hard palate and soft palate, the gingival and oral mucosa overlying the buccal sulcus and in the salivary and mucous glands. The survival rates of patients with lymphomas underline the fact that the prognosis falls rapidly from the early stages where the lymphoma lesion is relatively small, single and isolated, to the later stage where there is also involvement of the associated lymph nodes.