Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) in diagnosis of salivary gland tumours

Sa？etak Aim: Salivary gland tumours are rare head and neck neoplasms that histologically make up a very heterogeneous tumour group. The most important diagnostic method is an ultrasound exam of the salivary gland with cytopunction of a tumour. The aim of the paper is to determine the specificity and sensitivity of the cytological findings and to determine the degree of agreement between the cytological and histopathological findings. Patients and methods: This study encompassed 49 patients who underwent surgery due to salivary gland tumors between 2015-2017. Only patients with preoperative cytologic findings and postoperative histopathological findings were compared. Results: The most frequent group of patients were those over 60 years (57%). The salivary gland was the most common cancer site in 94% of patients. According to the cytological finding, 40 benign and 9 malignant tumours were diagnosed. In the histopathological study of lesions, 39 were diagnosed as benign and 10 as malignant. The most common histopathological diagnosis was Warthin’s tumor (cystenolymphoma) in 52.5% and pleomorphic adenom in 37.5% of patients. Based on the data, sensitivity was 90% and specificity was 100%. Kappa statistics for the degree of agreement between fine needle aspiration cytology and histological results were 0.93 (95% CI = 0.687-0.979). Conclusion: In our study, FNAC proved to be a very good method in the diagnosis of salivary gland tumours with high sensitivity and specificity, and excellent degree of agreement between FNAC and final diagnosis