title: Scintigraphic analysis of the parotid glands in patients with sialorrhea and Parkinson's disease.
abstract: Since sialorrhea was initially described, it has been associated with Parkinson's disease (PD) but until now little is known about its pathophysiology. The authors studied parotid gland activity using scintigraphic analysis on 14 PD patients with sialorrhea and in eight healthy persons with matching ages. There was no difference between uptake and intra-glandular distribution by the parotid gland in the two groups but the parotid excretion speed in the PD patients was greater than that observed in healthy individuals. Our results reject the hypothesis of PD productive sialorrhea and point to retention sialorrhea due to the increase of saliva excretion velocity.
authors.affiliation: 25(a) Enfermaria da Santa Casa de Misericórdia do Rio de Janeiro e Serviço de Neurologia do Hospital Universitário Antonio Pedro da Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Brazil.
authors.forename: Denise Hack
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Nicaretta
authors.forename: Ana Lucia Zuma
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: de Rosso
authors.forename: Carmelindo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Maliska
authors.forename: Milton Melciades Barbosa
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Costa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications*; D010306:Parotid Gland / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012798:Sialorrhea / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology*