Salivary gland mini-organs grown from pluripotent stem cells offer potential path to treating severe dry mouth

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Researchers have grown salivary-gland mini-organs from pluripotent stem cells, suggesting a possible future treatment for severe dry mouth. The condition can result from cancer radiotherapy or autoimmune diseases such as Sjögren's disease and can impair speaking, swallowing, and eating.

Extreme dry mouth, caused by radiation used to treat cancer and by autoimmune diseases such as Sjögren's disease, radically affects quality of life for sufferers. It can hamper speaking, swallowing and eating, and for years has seemed an intractable problem.