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Caviar tongue

Field	Value
synonym	Sublingual varicosities or Sublingual varices
image	Facies inferior linguae.JPG
caption	Normal appearance of the undersurface of the tongue, showing prominent veins
specialty

Caviar tongue is a condition characterized by the purplish nodular swelling of veins found on the undersurface of the tongue.

It is normal for there to be veins visible underneath the tongue, partly because the mucous membrane is so thin and translucent in this region, but where these vessels become dilated and tortuous, they may appear round and black like caviar. Caviar tongue is also referred to as sublingual varices (plural) and varix (singular) and look like varicose veins in the tongue. It is a benign, asymptomatic, venous lesion.

History

It was first described by William Bennett Bean in 1952, when he thought it looked like caviar.

References

(2020). "Andrews' Diseases of the Skin: Clinical Dermatology". Elsevier.
Viswanath, V. (Jan–Feb 2011). "Caviar tongue.". Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology.
(2013). "Mulliken and Young's Vascular Anomalies: Hemangiomas and Malformations". Oxford University Press.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

conditions-of-the-mucous-membranes tongue-disorders

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