Optical Coherence Tomography of the Labial Salivary Glands Reveals Age-Related Differences in Women.
The labial minor salivary glands (LSGs) play a role in medical research and practice due to their superficial location and involvement in both systemic and localized diseases. Swept-source optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a noninvasive modality that enables in vivo, micrometer resolution, wide-field three-dimensional imaging in seconds. A purpose-built swept-source OCT instrument was employed to acquire three-dimensional datasets covering the area of 2.43 cm(2) of the mucosa of the lower lip to the depth of 3.4 mm in young (n = 14; mean age ± SD: 27 ± 3 years; body mass index [BMI] 20.4 ± 2.3 kg/m(2) ) and middle-aged women (n = 11; 54 ± 6 years; 25.5 ± 3.2 kg/m(2) ). Glandular tissue reflectivity mode (range 0-255; 86 ± 17 vs. 68 ± 12, p = 0.005), average single LSG area in tissue sample (5.26 ± 2.62 mm(2) vs. 2.87 ± 1.26 mm(2) , p = 0.011), and LSG surface filling factor (0.23 ± 0.13 vs. 0.11 ± 0.10, p = 0.027) had higher values in younger than in middle-aged women. A correlation between BMI and glandular tissue reflectivity mode (Spearman's ρ = -0.60) was found (p = 0.002). The results highlight the potential value of LSGs' OCT morphometry in research regarding ageing.
['Nowak|Jan Krzysztof|JK|', 'Grulkowski|Ireneusz|I|', 'Karnowski|Karol|K|', 'Wojtkowski|Maciej|M|', 'Walkowiak|Jaroslaw|J|']
D000328:Adult D000375:Aging D015992:Body Mass Index D005260:Female D006801:Humans D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional D008046:Lip D008875:Middle Aged D009061:Mouth Mucosa D012469:Salivary Glands D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence D055815:Young Adult
minor salivary gland lip ageing obesity optical biopsy