Rare. Chronic ulceration of the tongue induced by repetitive traumatic injuries, mainly due to the backward and forward movements of the tongue over the inferior teeth.

The main causes are:

-        early cases (before the age of 6 months): precociously erupted neonatal teeth

-        late cases (after the age of 6 months): cerebral palsy and mental retardation: Down syndrome (in which macroglossia is a supplemental causal factor), encephalopathies, microcephaly, familial dysautonomia (in which insensitivity to pain is a pejorative factor).

In adolescents and adults, this lesion is called: oral traumatic granuloma.

Anesthetic implications:

benign ulceration of the ventral surface of the tongue

References : 

-        Eley KA, Watt-Smith PA, Watt-Smith SR. 
Deformity of the tongue in an infant: Riga-Fede disease. 
Paediatr Child Health 2010; 15: 581-2.

-         Senanayake MP, Karunaratne I. 
Persistent lingual ulceration (Riga-Fede disease) in an infant with Down syndrome and natal teeth : a case report. 
J Med Case reports 2014; 8: 283

-         Hong P. 
Riga-Fede disease : traumatic lingual ulceration in an infant. 
J Pediatr 2015; 167:204. 

-        Carr PE, Linklater DR.
A 7-month with a tongue lesion.
J Pediatr 2022; 244: 241-2

Updated: July 2022