A modified device for long term sampling of parotid saliva in various experimental conditions

A parotid cup has been widely used as an intraoral device for the collection of parotid saliva. However, in long duration sampling, the cup tends to disconnect under circumstances such as mastication, sleep or physical exercise. We have designed a modified device of parotid cup for saliva collection to overcome these unfavorable conditions. The parotid cup was modified by fixing it to the bite-plate appliance which was adjusted individually to the occlusal plane in order to avoid disconnection of the cup under varying conditions. Using this device, we could measure salivary flow rate during mastication, sleep or physical exercise. Additional advantages of this device are that it is easy to make with acrylic resin and is inexpensive. The preliminary study using this device showed that flow rates of unstimulated parotid saliva varied from 0.06 +/- 0.04 ml/min. to 0.16 +/- 0.10 ml/min. (mean +/- s.d) from 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. in 7 subjects. In five subjects, the flow rate of parotid saliva during meal (lunch) was much higher than that of resting on a chair, playing table tennis, or sleeping at night for 6-8 hours. This might be considered due to the stimuli of the meal content. Flow rates of saliva were also examined with various stimuli. The results showed that salty pickled plum > sour lemon juice > 10% ascorbic acid > sweet milky candy > 1% ascorbic acid. These data suggest that our modified device is useful for various experiments in salivary research.