- M. I. Vafiadis
- G. Exarchakos
- N. Simaskos
5 th International Conference on Pediatric ORL, 8-11 July 2001, Graz Austria.
Ανακοινώθηκε την Τετάρτη 11 Ιουλίου 2001 στα πλαίσια του συνεδρίου.
Κλινική εργασία.
Recurrent parotitis (r.p.) in childhood is distinguished from the adult form by the course of the disease, therapeutic considerations and prognosis. It is an uncommon disease. Children suffering from r.p. are between 2 and 15 years of age. Its cause remains unknown. Besides malfomation of the glandular duct like stenosis and ectasis, functional factors like the character of the salivary secretion, a viral genesis, allergic factors, an immaturity of the immune response, or family history are suspected as being responsible for the disease.
In the present study we report about 8 children with r.p. in the past 3 years. 6 were males and 2 females. Mean age of onset of the symptoms was 4 years. The most common pattern of the attacks of r.p. was 16 per year. The most common clinical features were pyrexia and painful swelling. In addition to the disease our patients had symptoms and signs of chronic tonsillitis and mild to severe adenoid hypertrophy, for which we decided and performed tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy.
Postoperatively we observed an impressively improved course of the r.p. 6 of our patients had no more episodes of the disease and 2 had only one more swelling episode. Judging from the results of the long term clinical follow up we assume that chronic tonsillitis and adenoiditis in relationship with the sialorrhea, which accompanies these chronic pharyngeal inflammations, may increase the number of pathogenetic organisms which then might lead to retrograde ascending infection of the parotid gland in a recurrent manner.