BACKGROUND: A salivary gland stone, also called salivary duct stone, is a calcified structure that may form inside a salivary gland or duct. It can block the flow of saliva into the mouth.

A novel gland-sparing, intraoral sialolithotomy technique has been developed for addressing both hilar and intraparenchymal salivary stones, demonstrating effective stone removal while maintaining ...

Saliva is always in your mouth, but sometimes it crystallises into a stone. These can then get lodged in the duct linking to the salivary gland, which blocks the flow to the mouth.

In those cases, up until about five or 10 years ago, our only option was to perform surgery under full anesthesia to remove the entire salivary gland. Now, we’re able to take an endoscopic approach.