How to Treat Ranula

Ranula is a cyst under the tongue or on the floor of the mouth caused by the extravasation of mucus into surrounding tissue. This is the result of trauma to the salivary duct or an obstruction in the salivary flow. Mucus accumulating above the mylohyoid muscle can produce an oral ranula and mucus along the fascia of the neck can cause a cervical ranula. Read on to learn more about how to treat ranula.

Instructions

• 1

  Use a tiered approach to manage the treatment of oral ranulas. Unroof the entire ranula and firmly pack gauze into the entire cavity of the cyst for seven to 10 days. If this technique does not eliminate the ranula, traditional surgery is used.

• 2

  Perform more traditional surgery to treat an oral ranula. Excise the ranula completely along with the offending salivary gland. Laser ablation and cryosurgery have been used effectively.

• 3

  Drain a cervical ranula with no other treatment. This is a simple procedure but the recurrence rate is more than 85 percent.

• 4

  Eliminate a cervical ranula by completely excising the oral portion of the ranula and the responsible sublingual salivary gland. The submandibular gland may need to be removed instead on rare occasions. This is a much more extensive procedure but the recurrence rate is only 4 percent.

• 5

  Consider sclerotherapy as an experimental procedure for treating ranula. The cyst is injected with the streptococcal preparation OK-432. A marked reduction was noted in almost all of the test subjects with localized pain and fever occurring in about half of the patients.