Salivary Gland Imaging: A Pictorial Essay

The major salivary glands are parotid, submandibular and sublingual glands. Imaging has an important role to play in detection, diagnosis, aiding biopsy and differentiating benign from malignant pathology. The traditional imaging modalities include plain radiography and sialography. With the advent of modern imaging methods like high resolution ultrasound with color doppler, contrast enhanced CT, MRI and MR sialography, the imaging has become increasingly reliable in making a confident diagnosis. A wide variety of conditions including obstructive, infectious, autoimmune and neoplastic pathologies affect the salivary glands, thus resulting in a wide imaging spectrum. This article is aimed at presenting the imaging appearances of common salivary gland diseases.