Ultrasonographic Evaluation of Salivary Gland Enlargements: A Pilot Study

Purpose: Radiography, Sailography, Scintigraphy, Computerized Tomography, MRI and Ultrasonography are the available diagnostic aids to diagnose salivary gland lesions. All the diagnostic aids have their own limitations in the diagnosis of salivary gland diseases. The advantage of ultrasonography in the diagnosis of salivary gland enlargements is its ease to use, less expensive, less time consuming, non ionizing and suitable for peripheral location of the salivary gland enlargement. In the current study, the efficacy of ultrasound sonography to differentiate a wide variety of salivary gland enlargements is evaluated. Materials and methods: A total number of 20 patients with different salivary gland enlargements were taken for the study. Ultrasonography was carried out using Philips ATL: HDI 3000. Transducer (linear): 5 to 12 mHZ for all the patients. Results: Ultrasonography findings which includes echogenisity, internal echoes, acoustic enhancement, shape, borders, calcifications vascularity and ductal findings of all the subjects were recorded and tabulated. Conclusion: Ultrasonography is very useful in diagnosing lymph node and salivary gland enlargement in submandibular region. Further, ultrasonography helps in identifying the salivary calculi and accessory salivary gland tissue.