Strain and shear wave ultrasound elastography in evaluation of chronic inflammatory disorders of major salivary glands.

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess chronic inflammatory conditions of major salivary glands by ultrasound elastography.

Methods: 21 patients with chronic inflammatory conditions of major salivary glands and 21 healthy adult volunteers were included in this study. All participants underwent B-mode sonography and ultrasound elastography. The diagnostic performance of strain ratio and shear wave velocity was evaluated by sensitivity and specificity at the optimum cutoff point and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve.

Results: Cases showed statistically significant higher median strain ratio of parotid and submandibular gland than control group (-value = 0.001). Total cases showed statistically significant higher median scores than control group (-value < 0.001). At cut-off value of (1.13); diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity and specificity were 97.6, 95.2 and 100% respectively with AUROC 0.954 and confidence interval: 0.840-0.995. Cases showed statistically significant higher median shear wave velocity of parotid gland than control group (-value = 0.022), with no statistically significant difference in submandibular gland in the two groups (-value = 0.216). Total cases showed statistically significant higher median scores than control group (-value < 0.001). At cut-off value of (23.5), diagnostic accuracy was 78.6% with a sensitivity of 81% and specificity of 76.2% with 0.819 AUROC and onfidence interval :0.669-0.920.

Conclusion: Our initial experience suggests that elastography may be potentially useful for diagnosis of chronic inflammatory conditions of the major salivary glands. This conclusion needs to be further validated large sample studies.