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.