CASE REPORTS   

Italian Journal of Maxillofacial Surgery 2014 December;25(2-3):81-4

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Schwannoma: review of the literature and case report

Spotti S. ¹, Gervasoni C. ¹, Valsecchi S. ¹, Di Francesco A. ¹, Colombo L. ¹, Tronchet A. ¹, Ussia A. ²

¹ Unit of Maxillofacial Surgery, S. Anna Hospital, Como, Italy; ² Unit of Anatomical Pathology, Diagnosis and Therapy Gestational Department, S. Anna Hospital, Como, Italy

Authors refer to last 20 years international literature and present a case report of intraoral schwannoma. This neoplasm is a benign, slow-growing, epineurium-encapsulated tumor and 1% only demonstrate an intraoral origin against the 25%-45% that occuring in the head and neck derived from neuroectodermal cells of the myelin sheath. Schwannoma had been initially described by the German anatomist and physiologist Theodor Schwann (1810-1882). It can develop at any age, more often in adults than in children and commonly in the third and fourth decades, there is no predilection for sex. We describe the case of a young female patient presented to our department in late 2014 presenting an asymptomatic swelling with slowly growing round lesion localized in the right cheek. The patient underwent surgery with general anesthesia with intraoral approach; the treatment of choice was a careful blunt dissection and conservative exeresis and the histopathological report after surgery confirmed the diagnosis of schwannoma. The postoperative course and follow-up were uneventful. The recommended treatment is a conservative surgical removal with preservation of the associated nerve by careful dissection when possible and an intraoral approach should be always performed; on this condition, recurrence is extremely rare. The prognosis is good and malignant transformation of benign schwannoma is controversial, although a few isolated cases have been documented.