Some common oral mucosal defects that often are major patient complaints, and sometimes cause confusion among clinicians, include hairy tongue, geographic tongue (glossitis migrans), stomatitis migrans, fissured tongue, Fordyce granules, median rhomboid glossitis, white sponge nevus, and lymphangiomas and hemangiomas. These conditions may cause some difficulties in establishing a definitive diagnosis and appropriate management. This dilemma not only causes some concern to patients because of thoughts regarding infection, transmission, and malignancy, but it can complicate both the use of clinical or laboratory tests and patient orientation and treatment. Because of patient concern, and sometimes symptoms, it is always important to be able to assure patients that these conditions are neither precancerous nor contagious. The frequency of these conditions is speculative, since well-designed population epidemiologic studies have not been performed or are inconclusive. Nevertheless, clinical experience allows for gross estimates of disease prevalence. Since the clinical appearance of these benign conditions varies so greatly, the signs and symptoms, diagnosis, and management are discussed separately as each condition is described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]