Sialendoscopy approach in treating juvenile recurrent parotitis: a systematic review

BACKGROUND: Juvenile recurrent parotitis (JRP) is characterized by recurrent episodes of painful parotid swelling in children. The purpose of this systematic review was to determine the diagnostic and therapeutic effectiveness of sialendoscopy in children affected by JRP. METHODS: A systematic literature search was performed in PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus and the Cochrane Library until April 2022, without language restrictions or specified start date. Quality assessment was performed using the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale (NOS). RESULTS: Our review included 524 patients and 646 sialendoscopies. The sample sizes of the different studies ranged from 3 to 77 subjects. Most authors performed sialendoscopy under general anesthesia. The mean percentage of recurrences observed was 25.1% (95% confidence intervals) (CI 23.6–26.6). There was a statistically significant relationship between the number of attacks/year and recurrences (p < 0.05). The percentage of recurrences according to the type of irrigation/flushing used ranged from 22.2% to 25.2%, with no significant differences between the use of corticosteroids alone (25.2% of recurrences), corticosteroids plus antibiotics (25% of recurrences) or saline alone (22.2% of recurrences). Sialoendoscopy has proved in all cases to be a valid method for the diagnosis of JRP, but it does not allow a reliable differential diagnosis with other autoimmune parotitis such as Sjögren's syndrome. CONCLUSION: According to our results, parotid sialoendoscopy was 74.9% effective as a primary treatment in the prevention of recurrent symptoms in JRP. The type of ductal irrigation used did not significantly influence the prognostic outcome. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40463-023-00658-1.