Pathologist-performed palpation-guided fine needle aspiration cytology of lingual actinomycosis: A case report and review of literature.

"Lingual actinomycosis" is an uncommon, suppurative inflammation of lingual mucosa, caused by Actinomyces. Infectious oral lesions can mimic benign or malignant neoplasms and fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a simple, minimally invasive procedure for the assessment of patients with such lesions. Here, we describe the case of a 28-year old patient presented with an asymptomatic, submucosal nodular mass of the tongue. Then, FNAC was performed by an experienced fine needle aspiration (FNA) pathologist (* ) in our pathology department and the lesion diagnosed with actinomycosis. We also report a detailed review of cases in the literature, with clinical findings.