[Median candidiasis of the tongue (glossitis mediana candidamycetica) (author's transl)].

The median rhomboid glossitis is generally considered as a developmental anomaly of the tongue. Recent clinical, biological and experimental studies provide support for a fongous etiology: this lesion of the midline of the tongue is a chronic hyperplastic oral candidiasis, occurring sometimes in association with candidal commissural leukoplakias and palatine kissing lesions. The yeasts--mainly Candida albicans-- invade the upper parakeratotic layers of the epithelium inducing a proliferating acanthosis of the deeper epithelial ridges; superficial micro-pustules closely related to the candidal hyphae were found in most cases. Antifungal specific therapy appear effective in early lesions; later the condition becomes permanent and, in a few cases, may go further to malignant change. Fourteen cases are presented in this paper: the clinical, histopathological and therapeutic features are obviously in accord with this fongous infectious etiology (already suggested and demonstrated in 1965 by French stomatologists) and with the more recent experimental data published by Cawson, Sohnel and Kirkpatrick, Jones and Russell.