Fine needle aspiration cytology in the diagnosis of salivary gland tumors: experience at Queen Allia military hospital

ABSTRACT

To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of fine needle aspiration cytology in the examination of salivary gland tumors at Queen Alia Hospital and to compare our experience with the international literature. This retrospective study was conducted between January 2000 and December 2004. Seventy two patients with salivary gland masses were evaluated using fine needle aspiration cytology. Those patients were further subjected to surgery and tissue was subjected to histopathological examination. The preoperative cytologic findings were analyzed and compared with the postoperative corresponding histopathologic diagnoses. The relationship between the fine needle aspiration cytology and the histopathology was investigated statistically using the Chi-square test. Out of the 72 cases with pre-operative cytology subjected to surgery, the histopathological findings included sixty benign and six malignant tumors which were accurately diagnosed with in addition to two false positive and four false negative cases giving a diagnostic accuracy of 91.66%. There is a significant statistical association between the fine needle aspiration cytology and the histopathology [p<0.05]. Our study revealed 66.7% accuracy in diagnosing malignant disease, and 96.7% accuracy in diagnosing benign disease. Fine needle aspiration cytology is an important and useful diagnostic tool with high accuracy in the pre-operative assessment of patients with both benign and malignant salivary gland masses. It should be however noted that the presence of false negative and false positive results using fine needle aspiration cytology indicates the need for caution