Nonlymphoid mesenchymal tumors of the parotid gland

Salivary gland tumors are uncommon and most of them are of epithelial origin. Mesenchymal tumors affecting the parotid are extremely rare, and we present a series of 19 cases. All parotid tumors (600 cases) treated at the Department of Head and Neck Surgery from A.C. Camargo Hospital, Brazil from 1953 to 2003 were reviewed and 19 cases of nonlymphoid mesenchymal origin were selected. The histological characteristics were reviewed and clinical features were obtained from the medical charts. 15 out of 19 were benign tumors, including 5 lymphangiomas, 5 neurofibromas, and one case each of schwannoma, lipoma, solitary fibrous tumor, meningioma and giant cell tumor. Four malignant tumors were classified as rhabdomyosarcoma, fibrosarcoma, Langerhans cell histiocytosis and endodermal sinus tumor. From the malignant cases, only the patient with fibrosarcoma died due the tumor, the other three are alive with no signs of recurrence. In our series of 600 cases of parotid gland tumors, nonlymphoid mesenchymal tumors corresponded to 3.16% (19 cases; 15 benign and 4 malignant). All cases were treated by surgery with no recurrences, except one case of fibrosarcoma whose patient died of distant metastasis.