By Michelle Rizzo

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - If you feel as though you drool too much, studies suggest you should seriously consider surgery to take care of it, say researchers.

Drooling is tough to treat, point out authors of a paper from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. That's because some of it is due to physical problems, and some is due to faulty wiring in the brain.

However, among those patients who have surgery, most feel that they have a positive result, according to the new examination of more than 50 previously published studies.

There are a number of such operations, such as removing saliva-producing glands and re-routing ducts that carry saliva. The researchers found that for any given procedure, more than half of patients reported seeing an improvement.

Still, "To date, there is no one procedure that is regarded as the most effective," note Dr. Scott E. Brietzke and colleagues in their paper in the journal Archives of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery.

"Surgical therapy for problematic drooling can be very successful and should be considered for patients with long-term drooling problems," Dr. Brietzke said. "Although less invasive procedures may still be considered initially, pre-operative counseling should include discussion that success rates may be lower with these types of procedures."

SOURCE: Archives of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, September 2009.

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