The Zygomatic gland is the least frequently salivary gland involved in glandular diseases. When affected, the clinical signs are variable due to its ventral location within the orbit. In most conditions, the treatment of choice is removing the zygomatic gland.
To remove this gland, various surgical techniques have been described, all including a lateral approach and ostectomy of the zygomatic arch, which is invasive and can be time consuming. Transconjunctival and transpalpebral approaches have also been proposed but the obvious limitations to access or extirpate large masses make them less renowned. This study sought to compare three procedures (ostectomy, ventral and dorsal approaches) for complete removal of the zygomatic gland by using 20 cadavers of mesocephalic dogs.
The surgical view was better with the ostectomy technique, followed by the ventral and the dorsal approach. In the latter, the space for dissection was extremely limited thus, it was associated to a higher risk of bleeding (due to uncontrolled damage to local vessels). Complete gland removal was possible in all the cadavers where ostectomy or ventral techniques were performed, with no relevant differences between the two approaches. However, complete excision was only possible in 10% of the cases where the dorsal approach was performed. The ostectomy has shown to be the most invasive and traumatic method, in opposite to the dorsal approach, where only the skin was incised.
Although we cannot completely extrapolate these findings to live dogs because various perioperative factors (like anesthetic protocol, pain or bleeding) were not considered, the ventral approach revealed to be a promising less-invasive alternative to ostectomy in mesocephalic breeds. The zygomatic gland exposure was appropriate with the ventral approach, which also allowed the complete removal of the zygomatic gland without ostectomy of the zygomatic arch.
Dörner, J, Oberbacher, S, Dupré, G. Comparison of three surgical approaches for zygomatic sialoadenectomy in canine cadavers. Veterinary Surgery. 2021; 1– 7. https://doi.org/10.1111/vsu.13589