Gnathic osteoblastoma: clinicopathologic review of seven cases with long-term follow-up.

The clinical, radiographic and histopathologic features of seven cases of osteoblastoma of the jaw bones were analyzed. The mandible was involved in six cases and a periosteal presentation of the tumor was noted in three cases. Six tumors were symptomatic with pain being the common presentation. The radiographic appearance of the intraosseous tumors varied from well-defined radiolucencies to poorly-defined mixed lesions. A small periosteal tumor was undetectable radiographically. Histopathologically, the tumors exhibited variation in woven bone formation, osteoblastic rimming, lesional maturation as well as interaction of the tumor with surrounding host tissue. Intraosseous tumors were managed with aggressive surgical curettage and periosteal tumors were resected and the underlying bone was curetted down to normal host bone. Follow-up of cases ranged from 2 years to 18 years with no recorded recurrences. Gnathic osteoblastomas offer a unique diagnostic challenge as they resemble other tumors of the jaws including the cementoblastoma, cemento-ossifying fibroma, cemento-osseous dysplasia and most importantly the gnathic osteosarcoma. We stress on the need to correlate the histopathologic findings with clinical and radiographic features to reach an accurate diagnosis.