Dr. Sonal Shah and fourth-year dental student Jace Porter (both Dental) co-authored and presented a poster abstract titled "What's Behind the Red Spots? A Rare Case of Mucocutaneous Telangiectasias" during the American Academy of Oral Medicine annual meeting last month. The case centered on a female with facial, lip, palatal, tongue, and fingertip dilated vascular lesions called telangiectasias. The patient reported having these lesions since birth, and blood work showed her liver enzymes were significantly elevated, supporting a diagnosis of Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT).
The significance of this unusual case is that patients with HHT may develop arteriovenous malformations of multiple organs that can be life-threatening and require antibiotic prophylaxis before invasive dental treatment.
