Tumor pathologies of accessory salivary glands - ROS - 2017 - Tome 46 - N°2

Principales lésions diagnostiquées en omnipratique - Partie 2

Pages 110 to 125

Drapeau de la France
As opposed to principal or major or extrinsic salivary glands i.e. parotid, submandibular and sublingual salivary glands, accessory or minor, still called intrinsic, salivary glands (ASG) are represented by a multitude of small functional units distributed in the almost all of the oral mucosa.
From experience, these small salivary structures giving rise to several benign and especially malignant lesions are shown to be poorly known.Although too frequently that these glands are not considered to cause certain lesions, the oral mucosa is highly rich in ASG (between 500 and 1000 units).
In addition, the appellation of "incidental or minor" does not reflect the significance and the variety of associating pathologies. Indeed, the ASG are the seat of various pathologies:
- pseudotumors such as mucocele, necrotizing sialometaplasia, etc.
- benign and malignant tumors;
- chronic sialadenitis such as nicotinic or postradic sialadenitis,
- similar to the parenchyma of principal salivary glands, ASG can present chronic sialadenitis in relation to certain systemic diseases such as autoimmune diseases (Sjögren's syndrome, graft-versus-host or GVH autoimmunity, etc.) or amyloidosis, Crohn's disease, sarcoidosis, scleroderma, etc.
Only tumor pathologies of accessory salivary glands will be studied in this article.
Authors : D. GAUZERAN