Aim: In this study, contribution of fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in the diagnosis of salivary gland diseases forming mass was presented by correlation with biopsy diagnoses.

Material and Methods: FNAC materials of salivary glands from 43 cases and excision materials from 19 cases evaluated between 2004 and 2007, in our department were reviewed.

Results: FNAC diagnosis were as follows; 32 (74.4%) benign, 5 (11.6%) suspicious for malignancy, 2 (4.7%) malign and 4 (9.3%) insufficient for evaluation. When cytological and histopathologic diagnosis of 19 (44%) cases with excision material were compared, histopathologic diagnosis of 13 cases with benign cytology were as follows: 7 cases of pleomorphic adenoma, one of Warthin's tumor, one of myoepithelial neoplasm with malign potential, one of mucoepidermoid carcinoma, one of intraparotid lymph node and two of inflammatory process. One of the four cases cytologically diagnosed as suspicious for malignancy by FNAC was malign lymphoma and other three cases were diagnosedas squamous cell carcinoma. One of the two cases described as insufficient in FNAC was diagnosed as pleomorphic adenoma and the other as inflammatory process. We found that the diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity and specificity were 88%, 66.6% and 100%, respectively.

Conclusion: FNAC is an easily applicable method with high diagnostic value for salivary glands masses.