Gigantic tongue lipoma: a case report

Lipomas are among the most common tumors of the human body. However, they are uncommon in the oral cavity. In the oral cavity they present as a slow growing, painless, and asymptomatic yellowish submucosal mass. Surgical excision is the treatment of choice with recurrence not expected. They have been known to grow to large sizes causing mastication and speech difficulties. The usual lesions consist of a well circumscribed, lobulated mass of mature fat cells. In other situations the covering mucosa becomes ulcerated and presents difficulties in diagnosis. The present report is of a patient who presented with a gigantic lipoma on the tip of the tongue which had been present for 3 years. She now had difficulty with speech and mastication as the tongue tumor now completely filled the oral cavity. An incision biopsy confirmed the tumor as lipoma. The tumor was surgically excised with restoration of normal tongue function, speech and masticatory capacity. Histopathologic examination of the excised tumor confirmed that it was a lipoma.