PLEOMORPHIC ADENOMAS OF THE SUBMANDIBULAR GLAND

Materials and methods: Files of the cases are searched retrospectively and features of diagnosis, treatment and followup are noted who had been surgically treated for submandibular mass between 2003 April – 2014 February and who had been diagnosed as pleomorphic adenoma.

Results: Nine patients who had undergone submandibular gland excision as a primary surgery and one patient who had undergone suprahyoid neck dissection as a recurrent disease of the neck are recruited in this study. All patients who had primary surgery had been ultrasonographic examination preoperatively. In addition, four of these patients had computerized tomography, another four of them had magnetic resonance imaging. All nine patients having primary surgery had been fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) taken. One patient had inadequate findings for diagnosis, two patients had benign cytological features, two patients had cytological features resembling pleomorphic adenoma, four patients had low grade dysplasia as a result of FNAB. A total of six patients had frozen section peroperatively. All of the frozen sections were informed as pleomorphic adenoma. All patients having primary and revision surgery had pleomorphic adenoma with intact surgical borders as a result of pathological examination. With further followup no recurrent disease is detected in any of the patients.

Conclusion: Preoperative evaluation of submandibular gland masses should be done carefully. Imaging examinations do not yield specific information even if they give important knowledge. Even if preoperative FNAB give contribution to distinction of benign-malignant tumors, it may be needed to eliminate the diagnosis of malignancy with peroperative frozen section. Frozen section is necessary to determine the extent of surgery. Keywords : Frozen section, fine needle aspiration biopsy, pleomorphic adenoma, submandibular gland