Radiolucency: Dentists beware!!!

Incidence of cysts or tumors in a general dental practice is rare, but still occurs, and many dentist regularly and commonly go for radiographic investigations and aspirations. Based on this they arrive at a final conclusion of a particular lesion. As for instance at times when a tooth is associated with a radiolucent lesion and where there is a straw colored fluid on aspiration, a common mistake by any dentist is to arrive at a final diagnosis of dentigerous cyst especially in pediatric age group. However, adenamatoid odontogenic tumor, dentigerous cyst, odontogenic keratocyst, unicystic ameloblastoma have many similar clinical and radiographic findings. Thus, all these features can mislead a dental surgeon to make a wrong diagnosis. Hereby we present three cases of the above said lesions with mimicking clinical & radiographic features along with straw colored aspirate in younger age group which was misdiagnosed as dentigerous cyst.