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Almost unbelievable, but after hundreds of years of exhaustive anatomical studies, new organs are still being found in the human body. Now Dutch researchers have discovered a hitherto unknown salivary gland in the human head.
Oncologists at the Dutch Institute for Cancer Research have started using a new type of imaging device to examine patients with head and neck cancers.
Positron emission tomography / computed tomography (PSMA PET / CT) combined with so-called prostate-specific membrane antigen binding has proven to be an effective method to detect the spread of prostate cancer in the body.
The patients are injected with radioactive glucose before the study begins, causing the patients’ tumors to glow brightly in the images.
However, when one of the patients was examined, the group noticed two areas on the head that glowed unexpectedly. As the multiple patients were examined, the same bright spots were also seen in them.
These spots were found to be present in all 100 patients studied. From this, they concluded that they did not find any abnormalities, but probably a completely new organ.
In an article in the journal Radiotherapy and Oncology, researchers describe that it is a set of salivary glands located at the back of the nasopharynx (nasopharynx).
“There are three major groups of salivary glands in humans, but not in this place,” explained Wouter Vogel, lead author of the study. to our surprise when we found this new organ. “
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