Salivary glands tumours: a retrospective study of 454 patients.

AIM

Salivary glands tumors constitute a highly heterogeneous group in human oncological pathology. They show different clinical, epidemiological, histopathological and evolutionary characteristics.

METHODS

In this paper we have analysed their epidemiological aspects in 454 patients with salivary glands tumors surgically treated at the Maxillofacial Surgical Unit of the Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria ''Ospedali Riuniti Umberto I-G.M. Lancisi-G. Salesi'', Ancona, Italy, from 1990 to 2002, to evaluate the incidence of the different types of neoplasia and their age and sex distribution.

RESULTS

Our results show that 63.22% of salivary glands tumors occur in the parotid gland, with a predominance of benign tumours, pleomorphic adenoma being the most prevalent histological type. A higher prevalence was observed in the female sex.

CONCLUSIONS

Malignant tumors were more common in the elderly than in young patients and the most common histological types were mucoepidermoid carcinoma and adenoid cystic carcinoma.