Retention and extravasation lesions of the salivary glands

ABSTRACT

A variety of disorders affect the salivary glands. Many of these are infective inflammatory, neoplastic or autoimmune in origin. A group of more common benign disorders that have salivary retention or extravasation as a common factor are the mucoceles and sialoliths. Since they are fairly common and may often be conservatively or easily managed the general dentist should be aware of these. More important, the dentist should be able to work on a process of exclusion so that more serious disorders do not get mis-diagnosed. This is a review article