Radiologic-pathologic correlation of unusual lingual masses: Part II: Benign and malignant tumors

Because the tongue is superficially located and the initial manifestation o f most diseases occurring there is mucosal change, lingual lesionscan be ea sily accessed and diagnosed without imaging analysis. Some lingual neoplasm s, however, may manifest as a submucosal bulge and be located in a deep por tion of the tongue, such as its base; their true characteristics and extent may be recognized only on cross-sectional images such as those obtained by CT or MRI. Some uncommon tongue neoplasms may have characteristic radiologic features, thus permitting quite specific radiologic diagnosis. Lipomas typically man ifest at both CT and MR imaging as homogeneous nonenhancing lesions. Relati ve to subcutaneous fat they are isoattenuating on CT images, and all MR seq uences show them as isointense. Due to the paramagnetic properties of melan in, metastases from melanotic melanoma usually demonstrate high signal inte nsity on T1-weighted MR images and low signal intensity on T2-weighted imag es. Although the radiologic findings for other submucosal neoplasms are nonspec ific, CT and MR imaging can play an important role in the diagnostic work-u p of these unusual tumors. Delineation of the extent of the tumor, and reco gnition and understanding of the spectrum of imaging and the pathologic fea tures of these lesions, often help narrow the differential diagnosis.