[Submandibular swelling and its differential diagnosis]. / Hypognathies diogkoseis: prosegise ste diaphorike tous diagnose.

The lump in the submandibular area is not too unusual. Nonmalignant swelling may be caused by mumps, sialadenitis, Sjögren syndrome, cysts and infections. Submandibular lymphadenopathy may also result from infections of teeth, upper respiratory track, sinuses and tonsils or infections mononucleosis and cut scratch disease. The neoplastic growths in the submandibular area may include in most of the case tumors of the submandibular gland, the tail of the parotid gland, the Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. However, since the greatest cause of asymmetric submandibular enlargement, especially in people elder than 40 years old is the metastatic disease, the physician should always first seek to eliminate a primary site in the head, face and mouth area. Possible origin from other parts of the body should also be ruled out. In this article we are presenting representative cases of submandibular swelling.

Changes of sympathetic activity during tooth extraction.

Urinary VMA excretion was studied in 3 groups of young and healthy subjects, before and 2 h after a standard tooth extraction. Local anaesthesia was either a solution of lignocaine 2% (1st group, n = 17) or a mixture of lignocaine 2% with noradrenaline bitartrate, 1250 micrograms/100 ml, (2nd group, n = 13) or lignocaine 2% with adrenaline hydrochloride 1250 micrograms/100 ml (3rd group, n = 10). Mean VMA excretion rose from 3.6 +/- 2.8 to 6.7 +/- 4.6 mg/g creatinine, in the first group. In the 2nd group, the mean VMA excretion was 2.3 +/- 1.2 and rose to 6.2 +/- 2.8, whereas in the 3rd it rose from 2.3 +/- 0.92 to 8.3 +/- 7.6 mg/g creatinine. The increase of VMA excretion after the tooth extraction was of the same order in the 3 groups studied and was not affected by the addition of noradrenaline and adrenaline in the anaesthetic solution.