Pre-operative evaluation of parotid tumours by fine needle biopsy

Aims. Although fine needle biopsy (FNB) is a well established diagnostic technique there continues to be controversy concerning its use in the pre-operative assessment of intraparotid masses. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy, specificity and sensitivity of FNB in parotid tumours and consequently to assess its clinical value. Methods. Over a 6-year period, 129 consecutive patients with parotid masses underwent pre-operative FNB evaluation and in 121 of these cases the cytological diagnosis was confirmed. Results. Out of the 86 cases cytologically diagnosed as benign, two false negative results were obtained by FNB, whereas out of the 38 cytological diagnoses of malignant tumours one case was found histologically to be Warthin's tumour. In the FNB results of the two cases suspicious for malignancy, one was confirmed histologically as malignant. Three cases of FNB with inadequate material were found to be benign lesions. In this trial, the diagnostic accuracy of FNB was 96.7%, the specificity, 97.6% and the sensitivity, 95%. Conclusions. Our results show that FNB is a valuable examination technique in the pre-operative evaluation of parotid masses.