Adenomatoid hyperplasia of the upper lip

OBJECTIVES The aim of the present article was to report a rare case of bilateral adenomatoid hyperplasia of minor salivary glands of the upper lip. MATERIALS AND METHODS Adenomatoid hyperplasia of minor salivary glands is a rare condition characterized by a benign, non-neoplastic enlargement of minor mucous salivary glands. Clinically, the lesion may be misdiagnosed as a salivary gland neoplasm or fi-broma, but histological examina-tion shows that there are usually more aggregates of normal-appe-aring salivary glands than are an-ticipated expected at that for the anatomical site. Pathogenesis is not clear, although a reactive hyperplasia to chronic trauma, such as in presence of ill-fitting complete dentures, has been sug-gested. Adenomatoid hyperplasia is considered an idiopathic, focal hypertrophic lesion of the minor salivary glands. Some authors consider it a developmental variation (hamartoma). Most cases of adenomatoid hyperplasia were re-ported to occur in the palate. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A 24-year-old man presented with a history of a bilateral swel-ling of the lips for 2 years. The le-sion was painless and had pro-gressively increased in size. There was no previous trauma or contri-butory medical history. On physi-cal examination there was a bila-teral ill-defined mass affecting the upper lip. CONCLUSIONS Adenomatoid hyperplasia is a rare entity in correspondence of the lip and it should be considered in the differential diagnosis of mucocele and other non-neoplastic and ne-oplastic lesions of minor salivary glands. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE Histopathological findings are fun-damental to obtain a definitive diagnosis.