DISCLAIMER: - The following review article and the photographs are obtained from the Scientific paper mentioned in the reference section. Please refer to the original paper in case of any queries.
References :-
Reference article:- Matthijs H. Valstar, Bernadette S. de Bakker, Roel J.H.M. Steenbakkers, Kees H. de Jong, Laura A. Smit, Thomas J.W. Klein Nulent, Robert J.J. van Es, Ingrid Hofland, Bart de Keizer, Bas Jasperse, Alfons J.M. Balm, Arjen van der Schaaf, Johannes A. Langendijk, Ludi E. Smeele, Wouter V. Vogel, The tubarial salivary glands: A potential new organ at risk for radiotherapy, Radiotherapy and Oncology,2020, LINK
PSMA: - Tateishi U. Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-ligand positron emission tomography and radioligand therapy (RLT) of prostate cancer. Jpn J Clin Oncol. 2020 Apr 7;50(4):349-356. doi: 10.1093/jjco/hyaa004. PMID: 32147685; PMCID: PMC7160915. LINK
Where and When was it discovered?
A group of scientists and doctors lead by Matthijs Valstar a Research fellow, maxillofacial surgeon, clinical epidemiologist (Head and Neck Oncology and Surgery) working in Netherlands Cancer Institute: Amsterdam, NL published a paper on September 23, 2020 about the newly discovered salivary glands in his paper.
Image: - An unknown structure marked in arrow. LINK
Although the definitive discovery was published and available online this September 2020 as mentioned in the journal, the research was started back in 2017 a three year mark in the calendar.
Initially they have noticed some signal expressed in orange color which was the same type of signal expressed by the major salivary glands in the human body after visualization by positron emission tomography/computed tomography with prostate-specific membrane antigen ligands (PSMA PET/CT).
PSMA - Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen
PET - Positron Emission Tomography
CT - Computerized Tomography
"PSMA–PET/CT is highly sensitive for detecting regional and distant metastases of prostate cancer at low serum PSA level. For patients with serum PSA level lower than 1 ng/ml, standard care imaging is insensitive for detecting recurrence"
Since the salivary glands are highly specific and highly sensitive to the PSMA ligands uptake which makes them visualized in radio scan. But surprisingly they have noticed a region of nasopharynx visualized in the scan.
With interest being developed over the newly visualized structure they have started the study in order to identify, classify as the new region was neither fit to any anatomical descriptions before which ultimately lead to a discovery.
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