Role of fine-needle aspiration cytology in swellings of the parotid region.

To report the role of preoperative fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in patients with swellings in the parotid region at a tertiary care center. Prospective study of FNAC results compared with final histologic diagnosis as the standard criterion. An academic tertiary care center. A consecutive series of 51 patients who underwent FNAC of swellings in the parotid region between 2007 and 2009, of whom 41 had surgical resection. Predictive value, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. FNAC was performed in all the 51 patients who presented with a swelling in the parotid region in the out patient department in our hospital. Sixteen patients (31.4 %) were diagnosed to have malignancy, thirty patients (58.8 %) were diagnosed as benign condition. The FNAC was not satisfactory in 5 patients (9.8%) even after repeated aspiration. The FNAC diagnosis of malignant or suspicious lesion of the parotid region had positive and negative predictive values of 90 % and 96.66%, respectively. The diagnostic accuracy of FNAC is 95 %. We strongly recommend FNAC as a safe and accurate and less expensive method for preoperative diagnosis of the swellings in the parotid region.