Mental nerve paresthesia: symptom for a widespread skeletal metastatic adenocarcinoma.

A case is presented in which the only positive subjective and clinical finding was mental nerve paresthesia. After appropriate and careful workup, in conjunction with medical colleagues, no definitive diagnosis was made until a biopsy of the mandibular canal was performed. The biopsy specimen in this case showed the presence of adenocarcinoma, metastatic to the mandible, thus upholding the axiom that mental nerve paresthesia suggests the existence of a malignant neoplasm. Retrospective comparisons with previous bone marrow aspirates demonstrated widespread, previously unrecognized adenocarcinoma.