Sebaceous neoplasms of salivary gland origin. Report of 21 cases.

Primary sebaceous tumors of salivary glands are extremely rare, although sebaceous glands are commonly present in parotid and submandibular glands. A review of the files of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology yielded 21 cases of primary salivary gland sebaceous tumors. Five were sebaceous adenomas, 9 sebaceous lymphadenomas, 5 sebaceous carcinomas and 2 sebaceous lymphadenocarcinomas. Seventeen tumors were located in the parotid gland and one each in the submandibular gland, the minor salivary glands of buccal mucosa and in ectopic salivary gland tissue in a periparotid lymph node. Thirteen tumors occurred in males and six in females. The peak incidence for all the sebaceous tumors, occurred in the sixth and seventh decades. The influence of age, sex, race, clinical symptoms, and pathology on survival is reviewed for each tumor group. Our histopathologic observations strongly suggest that sebaceous lymphadenoma and sebaceous lymphadenocarcinoma arise from sebaceous glandular rests in a lymph node in a fashion similar to that of a Warthin tumor.