[Base tongue actinomycosis]. / Actinomicosis de base de lengua.

Actinomycosis is a bacterial, suppurative chronic infectious disease caused by Actinomyces israelii. Actinomycosis of the tongue is an uncommon form, and only 3% affect the base of the tongue. We report a case with dysphagia from an epiglottis, vallecula and tongue base mass. Diagnosis was made on histologic examination of a tissue biopsy. The disease completely resolved after chirurgical incision and drainage of the abscess and one month of oral amoxicillin therapy. The recurrence of the disease, five years later, made necessary a second surgical procedure and one year of penicillin therapy. We comment the possible causes of this recurrence.

[Melanoma of the hard palate]. / Melanoma de paladar duro.

Oral melanomas are extremely rare and occur most often on the palate and gingiva. Its prognosis is poor. Surgical management remains the preferred treatment, sometimes in combination with chemotherapy. We report the case of a 72 years old woman with a malignant melanoma of the hard palate who developed three years later a gingival nevi and 5 years later metastatic cervical lymph nodes. Our treatment has been only radical surgery all times.

[Malignant melanoma of the middle ear, a rare site]. / Melanoma maligno de oído medio, una rara localización.

Melanomas of upper airway tract constitute around 1% of the total melanomas of head and neck. It's for this reason we cannot forget their location in middle ear, although it is truly rare, and we have only found three cases published in literature. We report a patient of 75 years old, who went to our hospital with otorrhea of two months of evolution, with subjective sensation of deafness. In the exploration ENT a bleeding neoformation was observed by otoscopy, which occupied all external auditory canal. The biopsy of this neoformation was informed as malignant neoplasm. These cells show a little cytoplasmic melanotic pigment and were positive to the tinction with Masson Fontana, as well as to the immunohistochemical antibodies S-100 and HMB-45. These antibodies are specific of malignant melanoma. We had a low opinion of surgical treatment because the affectation of the temporal bone and the size of melanoma. Because of badly prognosis, our patient died six months after the diagnosis.

[Necrosis of the greater curvature following acute dilatation of the stomach]. / Necrosis de curvadura mayor secuente a dilatación aguda de estómago.

We present a case of gastric greater curvature necrosis after acute gastric dilatation. The lesion was treated by vertical resection of the greater curvature and the distal end of the gastric fundus. This is the first case described in the Spanish medical literature.