The following symptoms and complaints may collectively indicate parotitis epidemica (mumps):
Leading symptom
- Painful swelling of the parotid/parotid gland (unilateral (20-30%) or bilateral (70-80%) with slightly protruding ears and “hamster cheeks”).
- The glandulae submandibularis (mandibular salivary gland) or sublingualis (tongue salivary gland) react in 10-15% with, the pancreas in 2-5%.
- Duration of inflammatory swelling: 3-8 days.
The infection may be preceded by several days of nonspecific prodromal stage (preliminary stage of the disease) with fever, headache, muscle pain and anorexia (loss of appetite) and malaise.
Associated symptoms
- Fever
- Headache
- General feeling of illness
- Anorexia (loss of appetite)
- Earache
- Difficulty chewing, swallowing and speaking.
- In childhood
- Meningoencephalitis (combined inflammation of the brain (encephalitis) and meninges (meningitis)).
- In individual cases, consecutive seizure disorders.
- Other glands are affected only in temporal proximity to puberty.
- Children under 5 years
- 40-50% acute respiratory illness.
- In adulthood
- Mastitis (inflammation of the mammary glands) in women (30%).
- Oophoritis (ovarian inflammation) (5%).
- Orchitis (testicular inflammation; testicular pain) – especially in men who become ill after puberty (incidence: 15-30%).
- Pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas) (4%).
- Thyroiditis (inflammation of the thyroid gland)
- CNS involvement (60%)
- Asymptomatic pleocytosis (50%)
- Symptomatic aseptic meningitis (meningitis) (10%).
- Transient deafness (4%)
- Persistent deafness 1 in 20,000
Further notes
- In 30-40% of cases, the course is clinically apparent or subclinical, that is, there are no symptoms.
- The majority of mumps infections under the age of 2 years are subclinical.
- In children under 5 years of age, parotitis epidemica often presents as acute respiratory illness (40-50% of cases).
