ACCURACY AND ROLE OF FNAC IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF SALIVARY GLAND SWELLINGS

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and efficacy of Fine Needle AspirationCytology (FNAC) in various salivary gland swellings. Materials and methods: This retrospective study was performed in Department of Pathology , SMIMER,Surat,Gujarat from July 2014 – December2017. During this period a total of 4372 FNAC’s were done out of which 110FNAC’s were on salivary gland swellings. Correlation was done between cytological smear slides and biopsy slides whenever available. Results: In this series of FNAC, 51 cases (46.36%) were benign neoplasm, 16 cases (14.54%) malignant neoplasm, non-neoplastic lesion 11 cases (14.54%) and inflammatory lesions 20 cases (18.18%) and non-conclusive seen in 12(10.90%) cases.Histopathology was available in 32 cases out of which 30 cases correlated with cytology.There were no false positive reports but false negative result was seen in two cases. Conclusion: FNAC is useful in the diagnosis of salivary gland swellings with a sensitivity of 94.12 % and specificity of 100%. The sensitivity, specificity, predictive value of the positive test and predictive value of the negative and false negative test for salivary gland malignant lesion which were being detected were 94.12%, 100%, 100%, 93.75% and 7.14%, respectively. There were no false positives.