Peripheral Exophytic Oral Lesions: A Clinical Decision Tree

Table 4

General characteristics of rough-surfaced oral exophytic lesions.

Entity	Age	Gender	Site of involvement	Surface texture	Type of base	Consistency	Color	Size	Symptom & sign	Treatment	Recurrence
Squamous papilloma	30–50 years	No sex predilection	Palate & tongue	Verrucous/granular/; papillomatous	Pedunculated/sessile	Soft to firm	White/slightly red/normal	Maximum 5 mm	—	Surgical excision/electrocautery/; cryosurgery/intralesional interferon	Uncommon except for patients with HIV infection
Verruca vulgaris	12–16 years	—	Vermilion border/labial mucosa	Verrucous/; papillomatous/; Pebbly	Sessile/pedunculated	Soft to firm	Pink/yellowish/; white	Few mm	Asymptomatic	Conservative surgical excision	Low
Verrucous carcinoma	>6th decade	Male	Vestibular mucosa	Verrucous	—	Firm	White to normal	Up to several cm	Asymptomatic	Wide surgical excision/; radiotherapy/; chemotherapy	—
Squamous cell carcinoma	62 years	Male	Tongue	Verrucous	—	Firm to hard	White/pink/red	Up to several cm	Painless/moth-eaten radiolucency	Wide surgical excision/radiotherapy	33%
Multifocal epithelial hyperplasia	Childhood	Female	Labial and buccal mucosa	Cobblestone	—	Soft to firm	White to normal	Up to several cm	Nontender	Surgery/laser/; cryosurgery/; electrosurgery	Minimum