ABSTRACT
The presence of saliva within the oral cavity is necessary to initiate the digestive process and it also acts as an important lubricant of the intraoral mucosa. Imaging has a role in evaluating the extent of salivary gland disease in patients who present with a dry mouth and those patients that present with pain prior to eating. There is a range of conditions that affect the salivary glands and these can be categorised as follows: acute or chronic inflammatory conditions; inflammatory obstruction secondary to ductal obstruction by a sialolith; cystic lesions; and space-occupying lesions that are either benign or malignant. The most common symptom is the relationship between the eating of food followed by the rapid swelling of the affected salivary gland(s). The pain may be acute or chronic and the extent of swelling can be generalised, recurrent or discrete.
