Abstract

Introduction: Although salivary gland tumors account for 2-6.5% of all head and neck tumors, their superficial location, easy accessibility and high Diagnostic Accuracy makes FNAC a popular method for evaluating salivary gland tumors. Salivary gland tumors can arise from either the major salivary glands (parotid, submandibular and sublingual) or the minor salivary glands which are located throughout the submucosa of the upper aerodigestive tract.

Materials & Methods: The present study is a prospective study comprising of 62 cases of salivary gland lesions encountered in during 2yrs period. Aspiration was done at the Department of Pathology after a thorough clinical examination of the patient, in each instance. The procedure was repeated in cases where the aspiration was acellular or inconclusive.

Results: Out of total 62 cases of salivary gland lesions in Prathima Institute of Medical Sciences, Karimnagar, 48 cases underwent surgery and were followed by histopathological diagnosis. These 48 cases were considered as the study group for the present study of cytological and histopathological correlation of salivary gland lesions and calculating their diagnostic accuracy. In the present study, parotid gland (40 cases) was the commonest site involved. Submandibular gland, sublingual gland and minor salivary glands were involved in 20cases, 1 case and 1 case respectively.

Conclusion: The main advantage of this procedure is that it can be repeated at different sites in a particular lesion. FNAC is useful as an outpatient diagnostic procedure because of immediate diagnostic results in comparison with the histopathological diagnosis.

Keywords: Salivary glands, Fine needle aspiration, pleomorphic adenoma.