INTRODUCTION
Hemangiomas are defined as soft tissue lesions in the maxillofacial or oral region, hemangiomas of salivary glands constitute 30%, of the most common non-epithelial tumors, in the major salivary glands. (1) Benign tumors represent an 85% of tumors in parotid gland, 13% in submandibular gland, 1% in sublingual gland and 1% in minor salivary glands; this also represents distribution of hemangiomas in salivary glands (2). It is difficult to determine the incidence for minor salivary glands due to lack of biopsies made, the diffuse anatomic distribution of these glands and difficulties differentiating origin from affected tissue between minor salivary gland and connective tissue that surrounds it. (3) Hemangiomas account for the majority of all salivary tumors in children younger than 1 year with a 90% prevalence, and have typically an initial rapid growing during the first 3 months of life followed by a second growth that can occur up to 4 and 6 months of age (4). The submandibular area as we see is a rare location for hemangiomas, but also it has been a challenge to diagnose hemangiomas in submandibular gland because this location is related with other pathologies that could simulate this disease, like sialadenitis, abscess or a cyst. (5) Also a hemangioma could exist with some benign pathology at the same time, like hemangioma with multiple phleboliths that could make it harder to diagnose (6).
We present a case of submandibular hemangioma in pediatric patient that had some complications and its diagnosis was challenging.