Role of nuclear scintigraphy in the characterization and management of the salivary component of Sjögren's syndrome.

The American-European Consensus Group, in its classification criteria of Sjögren's syndrome (SS), consigns dynamic salivary scintigraphy to providing objective evidence of xerostomia, a secondary role. In the current SS therapeutic environment, scintigraphy's ability to differentiate parenchymal damage from neuropathic or other derangements of the salivary apparatus may prove more valuable than its role as a diagnostic modality. The procedure itself is highly process-dependent and its discriminatory power task-dependent. A multiplicity of data collection protocols and interpretative approaches tends to corrode the validity of its diagnostic information. Salivary scintigraphy's clinical utility might be extended by standardization of its test protocol and uniformity in its interpretative algorithms.