Mucous Plugs, Sialoliths, and Foreign Bodies of Salivary Glands: A Clinicosonographic Review

Abstract

The goal of this narrative review is a comparative analysis of the ultrasound and macroscopic appearance of salivary gland mucous plugs with sialoliths and foreign bodies. The salivary sludge was also considered. In the world there are only two effective methods for diagnosing mucous plugs, ultrasonography and sialendoscopy. The first is simpler, cheaper and easier to perform, but more difficult to interpret for non-experienced clinicians, and the second is more difficult to perform, but easier to visualize and verify on the screen. While numerous cases of sialendoscopic images of mucous plugs in the parotid glands have been documented worldwide, sonographic images of mucous plugs in the Wharton’s duct have been noted by us in only one publication, and publications with sonograms of mucous plugs of the parotid glands, according to our literature search, are completely absent.