Palpable lymphadenopathy presents a serious diagnostic and therapeutic problem in primary care. The patients are often referred to a specialist with delay and even more often they are referred to unneeded diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Empiric treatment with antibiotics and corticosteroids and extraction of often healthy teeth commonly leads to delay in establishing the diagnosis and sometimes even to iatrogenic complications. Because of the aforesaid factors, the authors of this paper decided to review the available literature and try to quantify the characteristics of primarily malignant lymphadenopathies hoping to contribute to the making of a better and more cost-effective system for diagnosing these patients.
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