Background: Malignancies of Salivary gland are not uncommon. Among all the neck and head tumors, they account for 2-6.5% of all tumors. For evaluation of tumors of salivary gland, fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a commonly used method. Objective: To study the efficacy of FNAC in the diagnosis of salivary gland lesions. Methods: Present study was hospital based diagnostic evaluation study conducted among 96 FNACs from December 2013 to May 2015. The study was conducted in the department of Pathology at a tertiary care hospital. Gold standard used was histopathology of lesions. Results: The FNAC findings in this study were: Non-neoplastic 40, Benign 46, Malignant 7, and Suspicious for malignancy 2 and unsatisfactory. Biopsy examination for comparison was available in 37 cases. Sensitivity of FNAC was 100% and the specificity was found to be 96.97%. The positive predictive value was 80% and the negative predictive value was 100%. The overall diagnostic accuracy in the present study was 97.3% for FNAC. Conclusion: FNAC is less costly, rapid, safe technique. The best part is that this technique is minimally invasive technique. It is as good as a diagnostic test.

Keywords: Histopathology; Salivary Gland; Lesions; Technique; Diagnostic Test; FNAC.