Two pregnant women have suffered tumors on their lips and tongues after being injured, with one caused by chewing on food....CONTINUE READING
A 26-year-old from Saudi Arabia
suffered the non-cancerous growth on the right side of her bottom lip after suffering a ‘minor trauma’. The mass started out small, but grew to a nearly 0.7-inch tumor about the size of a dime — which bled.
A 43-year-old from the same country also suffered from a tumor on her tongue, which appeared after she bit into it while eating dinner.
The growths — diagnosed as capillary hemangiomas
caused by the abnormal growth of blood vessels — are thought to be rare on the lips, although researchers are saying this may be because many cases are misdiagnosed. They are reported more regularly on the tongue.
Pregnancy may raise the risk of these growths because the higher levels of estrogen can drive extra growth in blood vessels.
A 26-year-old woman from Saudi Arabia suffered from the above growth after getting an injury to her lips. She was pregnant at the time
A 43-year-old woman suffered from a similar growth on the side of her tongue
Doctors surgically removed the tumor from the 26-year-old woman after
applying local anesthetic to the surrounding area.
She was then discharged and given antibiotics to slash the risk of any infections.
She came back a week later, with doctors saying her lip was healing well.
The tumor was left to grow for four months before the woman, who was otherwise healthy, sought medical aid. She was in her third trimester of pregnancy when it appeared.
For the 43-year-old, her tumor appeared about two weeks after she injured her tongue during dinner.
It measured about 0.3 inches in diameter, doctors said, before it was removed via surgery. She was in her second trimester at the time.
Capillary hemangiomas form when an overgrowth of small blood vessels called capillaries causes a red or purplish raised lump to appear on the skin.
They may be triggered by injuries to the lips, doctors say. The body will grow new blood vessels to repair this damage but their growth can go awry, leading to blood vessel overgrowth causing the condition.
People who are pregnant may be at higher risk because they have higher levels of estrogen, with this hormone better able to bind to blood vessel cells and trigger them to multiply.
There have been only three cases of the condition recorded on the lips previously.
Two of these were in men and one was in a woman, with two of these individuals adults while the third was an adolescent.
One of the patients had also suffered an injury to their lip, similar to the latest patient.
Doctors said the tumors may be so rare on the lips because they are often misdiagnosed as pyogenic granulomas — a non-cancerous skin growth that appears as a small and reddish lump.
They may also be rarely reported in medical literature.
Cases are more commonly reported on the tongue, which could be linked to the fact it contains more blood vessels — raising the risk of these tumors.
Doctors surgically removed the growth, which had been steadily swelling for four months
The other woman’s growth was also removed using surgery
Pictured above is the 26-year-old woman’s lips following the surgery. She came for a check a week after the procedure
Shown above is the woman’s tongue after having the tumor removed, which emerged while she was eating
Capillary hemangiomas, a sub-type of hemangiomas — encompassing all tumors caused by the overgrowth of blood vessels — are more common in infants and children, linked to abnormal blood vessel development in the uterus.
The growths are most common on the head and neck, which doctors say may be because this area of the body has the most blood vessels.
The team at King Saud University in Riad said in the report: ‘Following a thorough search, only three case reports of superficial protruding lip mass were found in the literature.
‘Although hemangiomas can occur anywhere on the body, they are most commonly found in the head and neck.’
The cases were revealed in the American Journal of Case Reports.
Dr Alsheikh and others added in the report: ‘Although hemangiomas can develop in any part of the body, the head and neck are most commonly affected.
‘Because they are visible from the outside, these lesions are usually recognized quickly by patients and treating physicians and are thus clinically diagnosed.
‘These vascular beign lesions usually regress on their own in most patients.
‘But they are surgically excised [removed] if they are detected early, for both cosmetic and functional reasons.’
