Myxoma in childhood: an analysis of 10 cases

The object of this study was to present a series of myxoma in children and to evaluate possible differences between young and adults patients.

All tumors of patients under 16 years of age (10 cases), were separated from the 80 myxomas found in the Oral Pathology Laboratory, Faculty of Odontology, Buenos Aires University, and were analyzed in terms of clinical data, radiographic image, histopathology, treatment, and evolution.

Myxoma in childhood represented 12.5% of the 80 cases in our series. The mean age was 11.6 years. Six patients were boys and four were girls. Both jaws were affected equally, predominantly in the premolar-molar region. Eighty percent of the tumors were larger than 2 cm. Only one case was clinically diagnosed as myxoma. Radiologically the most frequent image was unilocular with cortical expansion and tooth displacement. Histologically seven cases were diagnosed as myxoma and three as fibromyxoma. Treatment involved surgical resection in most cases. Two patients showed recurrence within the first year after surgery.

The frequency of myxoma in childhood may be higher than that of other aggressive odontogenic tumors, although some literature refers to this tumor as very uncommon in children. Clinically this tumor may not always be taken into account in the differential diagnosis of intraosseous radiolucencies in young patients. The histologic appearance is similar in young and adult patients, but myxoma in children may be larger. It was not possible to correlate the histologic type of myxoma and the age of the patients.