34th Annual Scientific Meeting proceedings

Objectives:

To investigate the effect of deep tunnelling to the digastricus muscle in cats on the mandibular and sublingual salivary gland-duct complex exposure length and completeness of excision when using a lateral versus a ventral approach.

Methods:

Bilateral mandibular and sublingual sialadenectomy was performed in nine feline cadavers using the ventral (n=9 glands) or the lateral (n=9 glands) approach in a randomised fashion. The mandibular and sublingual salivary gland-duct complex was dissected as cranial as possible while retracting the digastricus and masseter muscles until no further salivary tissue could be exposed. Subsequently, a ligature was placed around the salivary gland-duct complex. Deep tunnelling to the digastricus muscle was performed, and dissection continued rostral to the lingual nerve to the sublingual caruncle, where the gland-duct complex was excised. The distance from the monostomatic part of the sublingual gland to the ligature was compared with the distance to the level of excision using an unpaired t-test. Histopathology of additional salivary tissue exposed by tunnelling was performed.

Results:

The lingual nerve could be identified by retracting the digastricus and masseter muscles without tunnelling in both the ventral and lateral approaches. Tunnelling was associated with a significantly longer salivary gland-duct exposure in both approaches (P=0.0026 and P=0.0049, respectively). Histopathology identified salivary glandular tissue in 13/15 specimens, just a small duct in one, and suspected autolysed glandular tissue in one.

Conclusions:

Tunnelling deep to the digastricus muscle is not required to visualise the lingual nerve in cats; however, it increases the salivary gland-duct complex exposure length and excision completeness.