Quantitative uptakes of 99Tcm-pertechnetate by the salivary glands have been measured in 36 subjects and normal values established. While uptake over the parotid gland increased with time, parotid uptakes were higher at all time intervals than uptakes over the submandibular glands. The uptake over the submandibulars also increased with time. There was no significant difference between resting uptakes of right and left glands, a significant difference would therefore suggest the presence of pathology. Values over the parotid gland are greater under resting conditions than following stimulation, but no such difference was noted for submandibular glands. However, with stimulated glands it was also shown that there was no significant difference between the right and left parotid, or rignt and left submandibular uptakes. The clinical relevance of these findings is discussed.

In a recent report Esposito (J Dental Res 49: 459, 1970) studied the time course of iodide concentration in the submaxillary gland; he used the rat as his experimental animal. Although iodide is concentrated in salivary glands of humans and other species (B. COHEN and N. B. MYANT, J Physiol 145:595, 1959 and Sci 33:425, 1967), previous studies have shown that iodide is not concentrated in submandibular saliva (J Physiol 145:595, 1959) or in the submandibular salivary gland, in vivo or in vitro (K. BROWN-GRANT, J Physiol 165: 519, 1963), in the rat. In the latter study the glandblood ratio was less than one, and was not affected by large doses of thiocyanate. Esposito's conclusion that there was an affinity of the submaxillary glands for 131I was not confirmed by his published data, because blood radioiodine or gland-blood radioiodine ratios mere not reported.It seemed likely that the time course during which iodide appears in the salivary glands might be different in animals such as the rat, which does not concentrate iodide, and the mouse in which iodide is concentrated to several times the plasma level (K. Arch Oral Biol 15:425, 1970). Therefore, we studied the time course of iodide concentration in the submandibular salivary glands of the two species.Seventy-two male albino mice (AS 1 strain) that weighed 25 + 1 gm each were studied. Two gic 131I in 0.2 ml saline solution was injected intraperitoneally. The activity in the submandibular glands and in the blood of four mice was studied at each of the following time intervals : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7.5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 75, 90, 120, and 180 minutes after isotope injections as described previously (Arch Oral Biol 15:425, 1970). Nine male SpragueDawley rats weighing 250 gm each were studied in the same way. Rats were killed by exsanguination at 1, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 60, 120, and 180 Additional information available on request to authors.