Bhubaneswar: SUM Ultimate Medicare here has become the first hospital in Odisha to introduce Sialoendoscopy, an innovative technique that uses extremely narrow endoscopes for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes of many conditions of the salivary gland.
Dr Radhamadhab Sahu, Head of ENT and Skull Base surgery in the hospital, recently removed stones from the submandibular gland duct using Sialoendoscopy and made the gland functional again in a young adult patient.
“The entire salivary gland was earlier removed in such cases, which left a visible scar in the neck,” Dr Sahu said.
Sialoendoscopy involves an extremely small endoscope measuring just 1.3 mm, which is introduced into the salivary gland duct and the cause of obstruction is directly addressed, he said.
Dehydration and poor eating habits are considered the reasons, leading to the formation of salivary duct stones. Not drinking enough fluids can cause the saliva to concentrate and not eating enough can cause a reduction in saliva production forming salivary duct stones, the surgeon said.
The 30-year-old young man from Bhubaneswar approached the hospital with recurrent swelling in the upper part of the neck on the left side. Whenever he sat down for a meal, he would feel a painless lump appearing in his neck which would disappear after a few hours. The patient was diagnosed with sub- mandibular duct stones which were removed successfully using a sialoendoscope without leaving any scar. The submandibular gland was preserved as well.
“As we do not remove kidneys for ureteric stones, similarly we should not remove salivary gland for duct stones, which can be easily addressed using Sialaendoscopy.” Dr. Sahu added
