title: Fine-needle aspiration biopsy in parotid masses.
abstract: Seventy-nine cases of parotid masses were punctured by fine needle for cytologic examination and subsequently operated on. Of the material obtained, conventional smears, as well as formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded histologic sections were prepared. The two procedures detected 16 malignant tumors and 63 nonmalignant lesions, with a high sensitivity (86%) and absolute specificity (100%). These data confirm the validity of this combined method and favor the complementary use of the two procedures, which improves the accuracy (80%) of preoperative diagnosis and histologic typing of parotid tumors.
mesh_terms: D001707:Biopsy, Needle; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006652:Histological Techniques; D006801:Humans; D010307:Parotid Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology