A review of the literature in regard to the benign tumors of the maxilla and mandible and, particularly, the descriptions of osseous, fibrous, or fibro-osseous neoplasms in that region emphasizes a degree of confusion in terminology which makes accurate classification of any such tumor difficult. Several authors discuss these tumors under a variety of names: osteofibroma, fibrous osteoma, localized osteitis fibrosa, fibromyxoma, fibrous dysplasia, and others.* Phemister and Grimson6 reported 13 cases of fibro-osseous tumors of the maxilla and mandible, each containing variable amounts of trabecular bone with fibrous marrow; some of these tumors showed giant cells, myxomatous changes, or hemopoietic elements. The authors remarked on the probable parallelism between such "fibrous osteomas" in membranous bone and the benign osteomas and chondromas of cartilaginous bone.
Despite this nosologic confusion, which tends to make one chary of describing an "unusual" tumor of this region, it would appear that osteoid osteoma