CASE REPORT   

European Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 2020 April;4(1):21-4

DOI: 10.23736/S2532-3466.19.00170-X

Copyright © 2019 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

A rare case of hibernoma in the maxillofacial region mimicking a malignant salivary tumor

Sumudu H. MEDAWELA ¹ ✉, Kanchana D. KAPUGAMA ², Ravisankar NUTALAPATI ², Primali R. JAYASOORIYA ³

¹ Department of Oral Medicine and Periodontology, Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka; ² Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka; ³ Department of Oral Pathology, Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Hibernoma is a rare slow growing benign tumor which arises from brown fat in adults. There are less than 200 reported cases in the whole body to date. It is even rare pathology in maxillofacial region; diagnosis may be very difficult and can be confused with a minor salivary gland tumor, enlarged lymph node or lipoma in subcutaneous tissue. A Here we present a 54-year-old female presented to department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University Dental Hospital, Peradeniya with a complaint of painless slow growing mass on right side cheek of 6 months duration. On investigation of her complaint patient was diagnosed to have a rare case of Hibernoma. The lesion was surgically excised and the patient was routinely reviewed in clinic with one month review intervals and recent review revealed that patient has been disease-free for 9 months. According to the WHO 2002 classification of soft tissue tumors, six histopathological subtypes of Hibernoma and Out of the subtypes, the pale variant is the subtype that was identified in the present tumor. This case report is comparable in most aspects with the recent literature, except for the fact that the tumor appeared in the maxillofacial region.

KEY WORDS: Lipoma; Masseter muscle; Salivary glands; Mouth neoplasms; Oral surgical procedures