Primary plasma-cell tumors of the upper air passages and oral cavity

N rare occasions, primary sessile or polypoid grayish-red to dark-red swellings occur in the nasal, pharyngeal, or oral mucous membranes that tend to be somewhat lobulated as they increase in size and that very seldom ulcerate. These are composed very largely of plasma cells in massed formations supported by a reticular stroma of connective tissue. The plasma cells may be of the usual appearance with single or multiple "cart wheel" nuclei, few mitoses, and no Russell bodies, and the only remarkable feature may be their presence in solid phalanxes to the exclusion of almost every other kind of cell. Usually these lesions are solitary, and the blood count, urine findings, and roentgen-ray examination of the bones negative; although sometimes the masses are multiple and the regional nodes in the neck enlarged. The tumors cause no symptoms other than those mechanical ones connected with any comparable enlargements.