Traumatic Bone Cyst

The traumatic bone cyst is an uncommon non epithelial lined cavity of the jaws. The cyst is mainly diagnosed in young patients most frequently in their teen. Most of these lesions are located in the mandible.  These lesions are asymptomatic in the most of cases and are often discovered on routine dental X-rays. Since epithelial lining is non existent,  microscopic diagnosis may be difficult.

Below see a Ct scan of a 15 Year old male athelete presenting to our office with large cystic lesion of left mandibular body which was discovered on panoramic x ray when he was consulting an orthodontist.

At surgery, we discovered a large cystic lesion devoid of any epithelium. Scrapings of the cyst was consistent with diagnosis of Traumatic bone cyst per pathologist.

The  recommended treatment for this lesion is surgical exploration followed by curettage of the bony walls.

The surgical exploration serves as both a diagnostic  and as definitive therapy by producing bleeding in the cavity. Blood clot formation in the cavity is eventually replaced by bone.