Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology Utility in Salivary Gland Tumor Diagnosis

We aimed to improve the diagnostic accuracy of tumors by using immunocytochemistry (IHC) on destained smears to correlate the cytological findings with histopathology and/or IHC for final evaluation of results. We have done a randomized and prospective double-blind study. Forty-six clinically suspected patients of salivary gland tumor were enrolled for study. Those with non-neoplastic\ inflammatory salivary gland pathologies and swellings other than salivary gland origin were excluded from the study. The Fine needle aspiration cytological (FNAC) diagnosis of all the patients was compared with the corresponding histopathology. Sensitivity and specificity of FNAC in diagnosing malignancy were 91.3 and 100 %. Diagnostic accuracy of FNAC for malignant tumors was 95.65 %. In our study kappa value came out to be 0.88 (p value <0.00), which indicated an excellent agreement between histological and cytological typing of salivary gland tumors. FNAC is a highly sensitive and specific technique for diagnosis of salivary gland tumors. Histopathology however is the gold standard for diagnosis, classification and grading of tumors. Immuno-cytochemistry can act as adjuvant in diagnosing salivary gland tumors, however it did not help in improving the diagnostic accuracy of FNAC in our study. Considering an excellent agreement between cytology and histology, a type specific diagnosis can be reached on FNAC of salivary gland tumors.