Diseases of the salivary glands in infants and adolescents

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Diseases of the salivary glands are rare in infants and children (with the exception of diseases such as parotitis epidemica and cytomegaly) and the therapeutic regimen differs from that in adults. It is therefore all the more important to gain exact and extensive insight into general and special aspects of pathological changes of the salivary glands in these age groups. Etiology and pathogenesis of these entities is still not yet fully known for the age group in question so that general rules for treatment, based on clinical experience, cannot be given, particularly in view of the small number of cases of the different diseases. Swellings of the salivary glands may be caused by acute and chronic inflammatory processes, by autoimmune diseases, by duct translocation due to sialolithiasis, and by tumors of varying dignity. Clinical examination and diagnosis has also to differentiate between salivary gland cysts and inflammation or tumors.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Salivary gland diseases are rare in childhood and adolescence. Their pattern of incidence differs very much from that of adults. Acute and chronic sialadenitis not responding to conservative treatment requires an appropriate surgical approach. The rareness of salivary gland tumors is particularly true for the malignant parotid tumors which are more frequent in juvenile patients, a fact that has to be considered in diagnosis and therapy.</p

Extra-articular cartilage affected in collagen-induced, but not pristane-induced, arthritis models

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease primarily affecting cartilaginous joints but also extra-articular tissues such as the nose and upper respiratory tract. We have investigated extra-articular cartilage involvement in two commonly used animal models for RA, collagen-induced and pristane-induced arthritis, by immunizing rats with different susceptibility to disease (LEW.1 A, LEW.1F and DA rats). We found that nasal and tracheolaryngeal cartilage is affected in LEW.1 A and DA rats to varying degrees in collagen-induced arthritis but not in any strain in the pristane-induced model. Antibodies to matrilin-1, a cartilage-specific protein expressed mainly in tracheolaryngeal and nasal cartilage but not in joints, were positively associated with the presence of inflammation in nasal cartilage. In contrast, no antibody response to matrilin-1 could be detected in pristane-induced arthritis. In addition, nasal vaccination with collagen type II prior to immunization in DA rats significantly decreased the antibody response to matrilin-1 at day 56, but not at earlier time points, indicating a late protective effect on extra-articular cartilage. We conclude that pristane-induced arthritis is a joint-specific model whereas collagen-induced arthritis affect joints as well as extra-articular cartilage. Furthermore, collagen immunization induces an antibody response to matrilin-1