Submandibular salivary gland tumors: a clinicopathologic review of 58 cases

Abstract

Objectives: Salivary gland tumors account for only 3% of head and neck tumors. Their character is mostly benign, although tumors of the submandibular gland are more often malignant. The purpose of this article was to evaluate the structure of patients operated due to submandibular gland tumor and to study the correlation between fine-needle aspiration cytology and postoperative histopathological examination. Methodology: We retrospectively analyzed the medical records of all patients with submandibular gland tumors. The collected data included the demographic structure, results of preoperative fine-needle aspiration cytology and postoperative histopathologic examination. Results: We analyzed 58 patients – 35 women and 23 men with a mean age of 56.6 years. The character of the lesion was benign in 45 cases and malignant in 13. The most frequent benign tumors were pleomorphic adenoma, inflammatory tumor and Warthin’s tumor, whereas most common malignancies were carcinoma planoepitheliale and lymphoma . There were four recurrences. Moreover, we compared results of preoperative fine-needle aspiration cytology and histopathological findings. The accuracy of this examination was almost 83%; 56% of incorrect results involved nondetection of malignancies. The sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of those tumors were 58.3% and 97.5%, respectively. Conclusions: The most common types of submandibular gland are pleomorphic adenoma and carcinoma planoepitheliale and lymphoma amongst malignancies. Fine-needle aspiration cytology is accurate in the preoperative diagnosis, mistakes are mostly caused by underdiagnosis of malignant tumors.