Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) presents rapid transmission and significant mortality worldwide. It is responsible for coronavirus disease 2019 . The disease presents diverse clinical symptoms, including fever, cough, dyspnea, and pneumonia. However, other manifestations associated with COVID-19 need to be clarified, leading specialists to an early diagnosis and better prognosis. We describe the spectrum of clinicopathologic COV-ID-19-related oral lesions that can be the first and/or the unique manifestation of the disease. Fourteen patients with a mean age of 58 years (range: 23 to 88 y) with oral lesions were included. All patients were confirmed to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction testing. Patients demonstrated mild symptoms, including dysgeusia, anosmia, fever, and headache. The lesions were recognized and classified into 2 groups: (1) lesions caused by ischemia and/or hemorrhage and (2) lesions secondary to inflammatory events associated with viral load. The palate was most affected (n = 8), followed by the tongue (n = 4), and both the lip and palate (n = 2). Histologic analysis demonstrated thrombosis of small arteries and capillaries, associated with areas of hemorrhage and chronic inflammatory infiltrate. Immunohistochemistry showed positive staining for spike protein (SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2) and angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 in the surface epithelium, salivary glands, inflammatory cells, and endothelial cells. Although the incidence of oral lesions among patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 appears to be uncommon, these findings suggest that the oral mucosa can also be a target organ for SARS-CoV-2.
Objective
This living systematic review aims to integrate the morphological and tissue-based molecular characterization of oral lesions occurring in individuals infected by COVID-19 (OLICs).
Materials and Design
This study was performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Ovid, Embase, and LILACS were searched to identify reports on OLICs with morphological and/or tissue-based molecular data.
Results
Four studies reporting five cases were included. Three patients were male, and the mean age of the individuals was 47.6 years. The most reported anatomical location was the palate (n = 4), whereas ulcers were the most frequent clinical presentation (n = 3). Histopathologically, all cases revealed cell vacuolization and exocytosis in the epithelial layer. In the mesenchymal layer, inflammatory cell infiltrate and thrombi/microvascular thrombosis were observed in three cases. Immunohistochemical reactions were performed in two cases. Both cases were negative for HHV-1, HHV-2, and CMV. One case revealed positivity for SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. No other molecular tests were found for the characterization of OLIC.
Conclusions
The pathological characteristics of OLICs are still unspecific. However, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and well-documented new cases, whether OLICs are due to coinfections or has a primary origin can be determined.
Scleromyxedema is an idiopathic cutaneous mucinosis characterized by a papular eruption, skin induration and paraproteinemia. Histologically, fibrolast proliferation can be observed in the upper dermis associated with a mucine deposition. Treatment is difficult and at present there is no totally effective therapeutic modality to control the disease. The present report is on a 68-year-old patient with scleromyxedema without systemic manifestation, who responded to oral steroid therapy.
Rio Grande do Norte (RN) shows the highest relative incidence of papillary carcinomas in Brazil. To analyze histological features that might be associated with this incidence, the authors compared thyroid glands from 463 autopsies performed in RN with 427 surgical and autopsy glands previously studied in Sao Paulo (SP). The authors found 41 papillary thyroid microcarcinomas (PTMs) in 35 glands (8.1%), an incidence similar to the one reported in SP (7.8%). However, PTMs were predominantly nonencapsulated nonsclerosing at microscopy (44.0%), in contrast with SP where these types of lesion represented only 4 out of 32 PTMs (12.5%; P = .0046). The authors suggest that these nonencapsulated lesions with no sign of inflammation may represent an early stage that may evolve to clinical cancers, contributing to the high incidence of clinically differentiated thyroid carcinomas observed in RN.
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