Background: The salivary gland tumors account for 6% of all the head and neck tumors. Salivary gland lesions consist of non-neoplastic lesions and neoplastic lesions. FNAC is most commonly used method to diagnose the salivary gland tumors. The main objective of our study was to analyze the spectrum of salivary gland lesions and to evaluate the efficacy of cytology in diagnosing salivary gland lesions by correlating with histopathological findings. Methods: The present retrospective study of 50 cases of FNAC and histopathology of salivary gland lesions was carried out in the department of pathology, Narayana Medical College & Hospital, Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, India, during the period of January 2016 to December 2016. Cytological smears were fixed in ethyl alcohol and then stained with Haemotoxylin & Eosin stains. Salivary gland specimens were fixed in 10% formalin and then stained the paraffin sections by Haemotoxylin & Eosin staining technique. Cytohistopathology correlation was done. Result: In our study, age range of salivary gland lesions was from 26 years to 68 years with a mean age of 43.32 years and female to male ratio is 1.5:1. Majority of the salivary gland lesions were noted in 31-40 years age group. Among the 50 cases of salivary gland lesions, 38(76%) cases were benign neoplasms, 7(14%) cases were malignant neoplasms and 5(10%) cases were inflammatory lesion. Among the benign neoplasms, Pleomorphic adenomas were 35 (92.11%) cases and among the malignant neoplasms, mucoepidermoid carcinomas were 4 (57.14%) cases. The overall diagnostic accuracy in salivary gland lesions was 94.67%. Conclusion: The high accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of FNAC confirm that preoperative cytology is a useful, quick, reliable diagnostic technique for rapid and early diagnosis in salivary gland lesions. Few rare tumors can be missed on cytology, but clinical correlation can give clue to the diagnosis of malignant neoplasms.

Keywords: Salivary Gland Lesions; Cytohistopathological Correlation.