Cytologic Diagnosis on Aspirate from 1000 Salivary-Gland Tumours

Abstract

Cytologic reports from aspiration biopsy in 1000 salivary gland lesions have been compared with clinical and histological observations.The cytologic reports on the aspirated material yielded a positive tumour diagnosis in roughly 92% of the cases with histologically verified tumours. In addition to simple confirmation of tumour presence information concerning the histologic type of tumour was obtained in about 70% of the material. The main reason for this lower figure was difficulty in recognizing cystadenolymphoma and the malignant variants of the salivary gland tumours. After a morphologic study of smears from cystadenolymphoma we have been able to increase our accuracy in diagnosing this type of tumour. The possibility of recognition of the malignant salivary gland tumours by cytologic technique is discussed.