Macroglossia in Children

Abstract

Uniform enlargement of the tongue in infancy and in childhood is generally associated with cretinism, mongolism or some other types of idiocy. In cases of thyroid deficiency the abnormal size of the tongue is due to infiltration with mucoid material. In thirty-eight mongolian idiots, three of whom were Negroes, we usually found the tongue furrowed, and we felt that its protrusion was not due to an actual increase in its size. In other types of idiots the apparently large tongue protrudes from the mouth because of faulty coordination. In cases of myotonia congenita, which is characterized by great hypertrophy of the voluntary musculature, biopsy of the muscles in infancy reveals that the structure is normal histologically.The first knowledge of macroglossia has been attributed to Galenus. At his time and long afterward macroglossia signified any lesion of the tongue which caused it to swell. In the literature, under macroglossia are included in addition to the more frequent types of lymphangioma, which are associated with no muscular changes, the less frequent types of tumefactions, such as cyst, lipoma, carcinoma, hemangioma, amyloid infiltration and the infiltration which accompanies hemophilia, Recklinghausen's disease, keloid formation and hyperpituitarism.Lymphangioma as a cause of enlargement of the tongue is so common that Bassetta and several other writers considered macro¬ glossia synonymous with lymphangioma. This concept was first emphasized by Virchow, when he investigated two instances of enlarge-From the

Non-Down's syndrome macroglossia

“…Siebert's review of childhood tongue size in 1985 was based on a morphometric study of tongue sizes measured in cadavers from foetus to 10 years age, however, in his study, he did not produce any universal classification of tongue measurements [15]. While the general medical and pediatric literature consists primarily of case reports, the surgical literature on macroglossia has focused on techniques of tongue reduction [8,3].…”