Metastasis of pulmonary adenocarcinoma to the oral cavity: A case report and literatures review of the last 30 years

Background: Metastases of pulmonary adenocarcinomas (pADCs) into the oral cavity are rare and sometimes misdiagnosed because of clinical findings that are similar to benign or inflammatory lesions. Case presentation: A 79-year-old man had a soft elastic mass in the oral cavity. Cytological and histological examinations revealed a metastasis of a pADC that was vimentin-positive. Conclusion: Oral cytology may be valuable for the detection of metastatic lesions in the oral cavity. Palliative surgery for maintaining the oral function may be beneficial to improve quality of life, and it did not affect survival time in Kaplan-Meier analysis from the literature review.