Congenital melanotic lingual macules

Abstract

We here present five cases of congenital melanotic lingual macules seen in our hospital. All the patients were healthy and normally thriving. A close follow-up showed that lesions were non-evolutive and allowed us to exclude malignancies. Pigmented oral lesions may show great variability in presentation, hue, number, size, and location in the oral cavity. Congenital, stable lesions generally raise less concern than acquired and/or rapidly evolving spots. As for tongue lesions, an accurate patient history and thorough head-to-toe physical examination in search for other lesions or stigmata of known syndromes is -in most cases- sufficient to exclude malignancies. Lesion excision should therefore not represent the first choice if a close clinical follow up can be established.