Peripheral Exophytic Oral Lesions: A Clinical Decision Tree

Table 2

General characteristics of smooth-surfaced oral exophytic lesions of salivary origin.

Entity	Age	Gender	Site of involvement	Surface texture	Type of base	Consistency	Color	Size	Symptom & sign	Treatment	Recurrence
Mucocele & ranula	First 3 decades of life	No sex predilection	Lower lip/floor of the mouth	Smooth	Nodular/dome shaped	Fluctuant to firm	Bluish to pink	<1.5 cm	Asymptomatic	Marsupialization	25%
Pleomorphic adenoma	5-6th decades	Female	Palate	Smooth	Nodular/dome shaped	Firm	Normal colored	1–5 cm	Asymptomatic	Surgical excision	2–44%
Mucoepidermoid carcinoma	3–6th decades	Female	Palate	Smooth	Nodular/dome shaped	Firm	Pink/bluish to red or normal colored	Up to several cm	Asymptomatic/Painful in high Grades	Wide surgical excision	Up to 60%
Adenoid cystic carcinoma	5-6th decades	Female	Palate	Smooth/ulcerative	Nodular	Firm	Pink/normal colored	Up to several cm	Pain is common/bone destruction/distant metastasis	Local radical excision + radiotherapy/; chemotherapy	—