THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SYSTEMIC INFLAMMATORY MARKERS IN THE DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS OF BENIGN AND MALIGN MASSES IN PATIENTS WITH PAROTID GLAND TUMORS

Methods: Medical records of 134 patients, operated for parotid gland mass in our clinic between January 2017 and December 2018 examined retrospectively. Patients were evaluated for age, sex, pre-operative complete blood count, post-operative histopathological diagnosis and presence of chronic disease. Patients were separated into 2 groups according to their post-operative histopathological diagnosis as benign tumors (group 1) and malignant tumors (group 2).

Results: There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of age and sex (p>0.05). Mean NLR and PLR were significantly higher in group 2 than with group 1 (p= 0.041 and p= 0.027; respectively). Although SII was higher in group 2, no statistically significant difference was found between the groups (p= 0.128).

Conclusion: The NLR and PLR may be used to differential diagnosis of benign and malign masses in patients with parotid gland tumors. These parameters are inexpensive and easy to use. But further studies are needed in this issue with a larger patient group. Keywords : Parotid tumors, parotidectomy, neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio, platelet to lymphocyte ratio, systemic inflammation index