Chew on This: Emergency Imaging of the Oral Cavity and Salivary Glands-What the Clinician Really Needs to Know.

Nontraumatic emergencies of the oral cavity, sublingual and submandibular spaces, and salivary glands are common and those requiring imaging will most often be infectious in nature.(1,2) However, noninfectious pathologies such as sialolithiasis, autoimmune sialoadenitis, and soft tissue swelling due to angioedema or hemorrhage are also important conditions that radiologists must be familiar with in order to inform the clinician of critical imaging findings that can have a profound impact on patient outcomes. To understand these pathologies, familiarity with the anatomy of these spaces is essential.