Dentinogenic ghost cell tumour in a 20-year-old male with previous squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue

Abstract

Oral squamous cell carcinoma in patients under 20 years of age is extremely rare, the alveolar gingiva being the most frequently affected site. The metachronous occurrence (eight years later) of a dentinogenic ghost cell tumour of the anterior maxilla in the same patient has never been previously reported. The patient had been diagnosed with a poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma of the ventral tongue when 12 years of age and was treated by en-block resection with functional neck dissection. Eight years later, he showed a dentinogenic ghost cell tumour in the anterior maxilla, associated with an impacted central incisor, which was treated by conservative surgery with wide margins; the patient has remained free of disease, without recurrence, at the one-year follow-up. Though extremely rare, malignancies should be considered in the diagnostic work-up of paediatric/adolescent patients with head and neck neoplasms. Additional difficulties arise when dealing with multiple tumours, both under a differential diagnostic point of view and for the surgical management, due to the lack of unanimously accepted guidelines for treatment and follow-up. To the best of our knowledge, oral squamous cell carcinoma and dentinogenic ghost cell tumour are unrelated to each other and may represent a casual combination, which raises additional questions as to the clinical management.