ISRA May 2022

Structural – Functional Correlation in Chronic Obstructive Sialadenitis

Chen Nadler 1,2 Chen Nadler 1,2 Ragda Abdalla-Aslan 1,2,3 Aline Massad 2 Sahar Massalaha 2
1Oral Medicine, Sedation & Maxillofacial Imaging department, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Hebrew University,, Oral Maxillofacial Imaging Unit, Israel
2Hadassah School of Dental Medicine, Hebrew University, Department of Oral Medicine, Sedation & Maxillofacial Imaging, Israel
3Rambam Health Care Campus, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Israel

Purpose: Sialography using Cone Beam Computed Tomography Sialography (Sialo-CBCT) is an imaging modality used to volumetrically demonstrate the Salivary Glands (SG) pathologies in the ductal system.SG obstructive disorders may be caused by: sialolithiasis, stenosis, sialodochitis and radioactive iodine induced-sialadenitis. Symptoms usually include recurrent meal-time swellings usually accompanied by local pain. The ongoing obstruction may lead to Chronic Obstructive Sialadenitis (COS), radiographically presented as either ductal strictures, dilatation, stenosis or sialoliths or their combinations. COS may be either unilaterally or bilaterally, either simultaneously or consecutive. In this study we aimed to examine the clinical and COS-related radiographic correlation in Sialo-CBCT of the symptomatic and the asymptomatic glands examined due to suspected COS.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed data of patients referred to Sialo-CBCT in the Maxillofacial Imaging unit, the department of Oral Medicine, Maxillofacial Imaging and Sedation, Hebrew University-Hadassah school of Dental Medicine, Jerusalem, Israel. All bilateral parotid sialo-CBCT examinations, conducted due to recurrent swellings of unilateral SG, between 2014-2017, were retrieved. The Sialo-CBCT scans were analyzed by pre-calibrated observers for COS radiographic features and the clinical-radiographic correlations of the symptomatic gland and the a-symptomatic gland, were analysed.

Results: Our preliminary study included 13 patients. Most patients (76.9%) had COS-related radiographic features in their symptomatic gland. Surprisingly, more than half of patients (61.5%) had COS-related radiographic features also on the contralateral asymptomatic side. Normal radiographic features were found in 15.4% of the symptomatic glands whereas 30.8% on the contralateral side.

Conclusions: We found good correlation between the clinical symptoms and COS radiographic appearance. In most cases, radiographic appearance of COS was also found in the contralateral side. Future, larger sized cohort studies, are needed to reinforce our results.