Malignant Tumors of the Palate

Malignancies of the hard and soft palate have a wide variety of characteristics. The hard palate, a subsite of the oral cavity, comprises the palatine bone's horizontal plate and the palatine process of the maxillary bone. Its boundaries include the alveolar ridge anteriorly, the soft palate posteriorly, the nasal cavity superiorly, and the oral cavity inferiorly. The hard palate is rich in minor salivary glands with close interaction between its mucosa and the underlying periosteum. This unique composition creates a different array of malignancies compared with other oral subsites. The soft palate, on the other hand, is a subsite of the oropharynx. It is bordered by the hard palate anteriorly, palatoglossal and palatopharyngeal muscles laterally, and the uvula posteriorly. The most common malignant tumor histologies of the hard and soft palate include squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MEC), adenoid cystic carcinoma (AdCC), polymorphous low-grade adenocarcinoma (PLGA), low-grade papillary adenocarcinoma (LGPA), acinic cell carcinoma (ACC), mucosal melanoma (MM), Kaposi sarcoma (KS), and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).