[Differential diagnosis of parotid tumors: toxoplasmosis lymphadenitis of the parotid gland].

The most common clinical symptom of toxoplasmosis in adults is a cervicofacial lymphadenopathy. The cat is very important in the epidemiology of toxoplasmosis, but contact with cat excreta is most uncommon. The cause of oral transmission in adults is more likely to be eating undercooked contaminated meat containing tissue cysts, particularly raw pork. Toxoplasmosis as a cause of lymphadenopathy is an unusual, and normally postoperative, finding after parotidectomy for a "tumour". In the last 8 years we have seen ten patients with an acute toxoplasmosis infection. We report two patients showing clinical signs of a parotid gland tumour in whom we demonstrated an intraglandular toxoplasmosis lymphadenopathy before operation. We treated these patients successfully using pyrimethamine and sulphonamide, so that surgery was unnecessary.