Summary

In this study, retrospective analysis has been performed on the cases of primary salivary gland tumours encountered in the period between 1980-1999 at the Dokuz Eylül University Medical School Department of Pathology. Only the cases with adequate material have been included. For each tumour type, entities which should be considered in the differential diagnosis have been determined. As a result of this analysis, mainly performed on histological grounds, sometimes with the aid of histochemistry and immunohistochemistry, none of the previous diagnoses have been changed. The only tumour that does not cause a differential iagnostic difficulty is Warthin’s tumour. It has been observed that all the other salivary gland tumours possess some diagnostic pitfalls although it depends on individual tumour. In this report the differential diagnostic features of monomorphic and pleomorphic adenomas, adenoid cystic carcinoma, acinic cell carcinoma, mucoepidermoid carcinoma, and, polymorphous low grade adenocarcinoma, as well as rare forms such as epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma and malignant myoepithelioma, have been re-evaluated and literature is reviewed.