Lingual abscess: a rarity

Abscess of the tongue seems to be a rare clinical entity and is a potentially life threatening infection. This acute enlargement of the tongue can present as an emergency, due to an air-way compromise and disseminated infection to other regions. Thus, a tongue abscess should be considered in all cases of acute tongue swellings, especially when host defenses are severely impaired. In acute cases the diagnosis of tongue abscess can be reached clinically. In later cases, culture and smear analysis are useful diagnostic tools, whereas antibiotics provide considerable amelioration of symptoms. Although none of our cases were life threatening, but we could able to diagnose these cases, based on their classic clinical symptoms and all three cases were confirmed by using standard diagnostic tool. They were put on antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs for the relief of symptoms followed by the local drainage. The following article explains pathophysiology, differential diagnosis and management of these tongue abscess cases in detail

The prevalence of tongue lesions in Libyan adult patients

This is the first ever-detailed study of tongue diseases in Libyan population, where the tongue conditions found in 320 patients (9.2%) of 3,460 consecutive patients screened in the department of Oral Medicine and Oral Diagnosis at faculty of dentistry, Benghazi Libya. Both sexes were affected almost equally and only 25 patients were aware of their tongue disease. Forty patients had one or more systemic illness, 34 of them was on regular medications. Fissured tongue was the most prevalent condition, as it has been found in 155(48.4%) patients, depapillated tongue in 82(25.6%) patients and geographic tongue in 55(17.2%) patients, other disease conditions were found in a lesser number of patients. Fifty-four patients had painful tongue conditions; other complaints included malodor, speech interferences or swallowing difficulties. Most conditions were confined to the tongue and in more than 90%, there had been involvement of the dorsum of the tongue. Fortunately, most tongue conditions can easily be diagnosed on clinical grounds by any experienced clinician, hence, the histopathological examination and other investigations are needed in only few cases. There is a wide variation in the prevalence of most of tongue diseases worldwide due to the lack of uniformity in criteria of the studies. Thus, more studies are needed in this regard