Parotitis on Ultrasound: The Pomegranate Sign

Sialendoscopy in Pediatric Sialolithiasis: Two Cases of Salivary Stones in the Parotid Gland and Review of the Literature

Sialolithiasis is one of the most common diseases of the salivary glands and the most common cause of chronic obstructive sialadenitis. Whereas salivary stones are responsible for most of the cases of obstructive sialadenitis in the adult population, sialolithiasis in children is considered relatively rare. We describe two cases of a 9 and a 4-year-old male respectively, with parotid sialolithiasis treated with sialendoscopy. A systematic review of the current literature was also completed in order to evaluate all described cases of parotid sialolithiasis in the pediatric population. We found 25 articles eligible for a total of 42 cases of pediatric parotid sialolithiasis.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12070-023-03508-8.

The applicability of ultrasound in the diagnosis of inflammatory and obstructive diseases of the major salivary glands: a scoping review

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of the present scoping review was to determine the contribution of ultrasound images in the diagnosis of inflammatory and obstructive diseases of the major salivary glands (MSGs).

METHODS

A search of studies of ultrasonographic assessments of human samples was performed in several electronic databases and grey literature up to July 2021. The extracted data were the examined MSG; the diagnostic value of ultrasound (sensibility, specificity, positive- and negative predictive value, accuracy); features of lesions, including number, echogenicity, echotexture, form, margins, size, posterior acoustic aspect, and location; and related clinical information, such as swelling, palpation, sensible to pain, salivation, lymph nodes, recurrence, duration, and causes.

RESULTS

After verifying the eligibility criteria, 90 articles focused on detecting inflammatory, and obstructive diseases of the MSG were gathered, with variable study designs and size samples. A wide variety of pathologies were assessed, including sialolitiasis (n = 45), acute sialadenitis (n = 30), chronic sialadenitis (n = 25), granulamatous diseases (n = 15), Kuttner's tumor (n = 11), juvenile recurrent parotitis (n = 9), abscess (n = 7), post-radiotherapy sialadenitis (n = 6), sialadenosis (n = 9), abscess (n = 7), IgG4-related disease sialadenitis (n = 5), HIV-sialadenitis (n = 4), obstructive sialadenitis (n = 3), iodinated contrast-induced sialadenitis (n = 2), and pneumoparotitis (n = 1). Most studies were case reports or series of cases. Few studies exhibited data about the accuracy of ultrasound in detecting MSG diseases.

CONCLUSIONS

The present scoping review concluded that ultrasound aspects of different MSG pathologies are similar but contribute to their differential diagnosis and can be considered as a valuable initial method for assessing the MSG of adults and children.