A 3-year-old boy has a map on the front 2/3 and side of his tongue.
The child had no pain or other discomfort, but oral examination showed that 5 1, 6 1, 74 and 84 teeth all had dental caries. In view of the fact that map tongue is a self-limited disease and the child is asymptomatic, the doctor advises the child to treat dental caries, maintain oral hygiene and drink plenty of water.
Case 2
Tongue diagram of a 4-year-old girl over time
During the dental examination, the doctor found that both the left and right mandibular second deciduous molars had dental caries. After apical X-ray examination, the child was diagnosed as reversible pulpitis, and it is suggested that stainless steel full crown should be used after dental pulp treatment.
In addition, after further oral examination, the doctor found that pink patches could be seen on the back or side of the tongue, the nipple in the affected area shrank and disappeared, and the tongue surface was smooth. The yellow edges of these patches are slightly higher than the tongue surface and are diagnosed as map tongue (Figure 2). Children only have a slight burning sensation in their tongues when they eat spicy food, and there are no symptoms at other times.
The girl's parents don't have these tongue changes. The doctor told the child to take multivitamin syrup and use tongue cleaner to relieve the symptoms. After 7 days, the area of the original map tongue has improved, but there is a pink map tongue in the center of the tongue surface, accompanied by atrophy of the tongue nipple. After 2 weeks, the pink tongue surface is clearly visible, and there are prominent red tongue papillae (Figure 3).
1 prevalence rate
The clinical manifestations of oral and perioral soft tissue lesions in children are varied. Map tongue and cracked tongue are common tongue diseases. Among them, the overall prevalence of map tongue in the general population is about 1%-2.5%.
Figure 7. The change process of the map tongue of a 6-year-old boy: 1 year ago, at the time of initial diagnosis (left), at the time of return visit without topical tacrolimus (middle), and at the time of follow-up after topical tacrolimus (right) [9].