Glandular odontogenic cyst of the anterior maxilla in a 13-year old male: a rare case of location and age

The Glandular Odontogenic Cyst (GOC) is a rare developmental odontogenic cyst that occurs 75% of the time in the mandible and rarely presents in persons under 20 years of age [1]. The GOC was originally described by Padayachee and Van Wyk [2] in 1987 who reported on two cases of multilocular mandibular cysts with features of both Botryoid Odontogenic Cyst (BOC)and central mucoepidermoid tumor (mucoepidermoid carcinoma or MEC). They concluded that these lesions differed from a BOC and MEC and warranted a separate classification, which they termed sialo-odontogenic cyst. Gardner et al. [3] described eight cases with similar histological features and coined the name glandular odontogenic cyst to emphasize the odontogenic derivation of this cyst. The glandular odontogenic cyst or sialo-odontogenic cyst was included as a distinct entity as a developmental odontogenic cyst in the 1992 WHO’s Histological Typing of Odontogenic Tumors [4]. It was defined as “a cyst arising in the tooth-bearing areas of the jaws and characterized by an epithelial lining with cuboidal or columnar cells both at the surface and lining crypts or cyst-like spaces within the thickness of the epithelium”. GOCs should be distinguished from other odontogenic cysts because: (1) They can recur more often than dentigerous or radicular cysts; and (2) Their histologic appearance can overlap with the lateral periodontal cyst, botryoid odontogenic cyst and central mucoepidermoid carcinoma [5]. Since the GOC is a relatively recently described entity, there is not much information in the literature regarding the clinicopathological features of GOC’s, or their occurrence in the maxilla and in a young age group. This paper describes a rare case of 13-year-old male with a GOC of the anterior maxilla.