ABOVE: A 3-D reconstruction from histological slides (inset on right) of the newly discovered tubarial gland (yellow; ducts in light blue). The torus tubarius cartilage is colored dark blue and muscle is pink.
M. Valstar et al., Radiotherapy & Oncology, doi:10.1016/j.radonc.2020.09.034, 2020.
Doctors don’t regularly come across undiscovered bits of human anatomy, but a team of physicians recently reported a never-before-described set of salivary glands in patients’ necks. The first hint of this new gland emerged while Wouter Vogel, a radiation oncologist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NCI), was probing for damage to salivary glands after radiotherapy for cancer in the head, neck, or brain—injuries that can lead to issues such as problems with digestion, speech, and an increase in oral infections. While going through these scans, he found something usual.
Vogel was using a new technique for detecting cells in the salivary glands—PSMA PET/CT, a form of combined positron emission ...
