Move over parotid, sublingual and submandibular glands, there’s a new set of salivary glands in town. And scientists are practically salivating over the discovery.

Dutch researchers were the first to identify the hitherto unknown organ, tucked away in the back of the nasopharynx, according to their report in the journal Radiotherapy and Oncology.

The team, at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, stumbled upon the finding while looking at scans from a cohort of 100 patients (99 male and one female, median age 69.5) with prostate or urethral gland cancer.

Taken using a combination of CT and PET scans with prostate-specific membrane antigen ligands, known as PSMA PET–CT, they showed something surprising.