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Revista Portuguesa de Estomatologia,
Medicina Dentária e Cirurgia Maxilofacial
Portuguese Journal of Stomatology, Dental Medicine and Maxillofacial Surgery

rev port estomatol med dent cir maxilofac. 2026;67(1):21-26

Clinical Case Report

Unusual case of pleomorphic adenoma in the accessory
parotid gland

2,
1
1
Ivana de Sousa Brandão , João Vitor Freitas da Silva * , Filipe Nobre Chaves ,
1
1
Marcelo Bonifácio da Silva Sampieri , Denise Hélen Imaculada Pereira de Oliveira
1 Post Graduation Program in Health Science, Federal University of Ceará, Sobral, Brazil
2 School of Dentistry, Federal University of Ceara, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Pleomorphic adenoma is the most common benign lesion of the salivary glands, primarily
Received 10 March 2025 affecting the parotid gland. The accessory parotid gland is a salivary tissue separate from
Accepted 14 December 2025 the parotid gland, considered an anatomical variation with a low incidence and rarely af-
Available online 31 December 2025 fected by tumors. A 20-year old female patient presented with a complaint of an increased
volume swelling for approximately 18 months. Clinical examination revealed a mobile nod-
Keywords: ule in the buccal mucosa, palpable intra and extraorally, of firm consistency, asymptomatic,
Operative surgical procedures with well-circumscribed contours, and without associated lymphadenopathy. Ultrasonog-
Parotid neoplasms raphy revealed a rounded hypoechoic image, without associated vascularization, in the
Pleomorphic adenoma angle region of the left mandible. In view of this condition, an excisional biopsy of the lesion
Salivary glands was performed under local anesthesia in an outpatient setting. In the intraoperative period,
a nodular encapsulated lesion was observed, whose location suggested origin from the
accessory parotid gland. Histopathologic analysis confirmed the diagnosis of pleomorphic
adenoma. After complete excision with preservation of the capsule, the patient has under-
gone a dental follow-up with no clinical signs of lesion recurrence and a very satisfactory
scar appearance after 7 years. (Rev Port Estomatol Med Dent Cir Maxilofac. 2026;67(1):21-26)
© 2026 Sociedade Portuguesa de Estomatologia e Medicina Dentária.
Published by SPEMD. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

seter muscle, and closely related to Stensen’s duct. 1,2,3 Autop-
Introduction
sy studies have reported an incidence of 21-69% in human
cadavers. 1,4
The accessory parotid gland (APG) is considered an anatomi- Lesions arising from the APG are rare, with an incidence of
cal variation that represents a separate tissue of the parotid 1% to 8% of all parotid gland tumors. However, when present,
5
gland, located anterior to the mandibular branch, between the these lesions have a higher malignancy rate (26%-55%) than
zygomatic and buccal branches of the facial nerve in the mas- 3,5
major parotid gland tumors. Clinically, APG lesions are de-

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: onevitor@alu.ufc.br (João Vitor Freitas da Silva)
http://doi.org/10.24873/j.rpemd.2025.12.1560
1646-2890/© 2026 Sociedade Portuguesa de Estomatologia e Medicina Dentária. Published by SPEMD.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).