Intra-oral Minor Salivary Gland Tumors:A Clinicopathological Study Of 412 Cases

Objectives: Salivary gland tumors are uncommon and most reported series include tumors affecting both major and minor glands. Very few series have focused solely on intra-oral minor salivary gland tumors. The aim of this study is to report the clinicopathological data of intra-oral minor salivary gland tumors in our oral biopsy files during the last 30 years. Methods: In this retrospective study, hopitals and institutions records of 412 patients ( 227 men and185 women) with minor salivary gland tumors, diagnosed from january 1980 to december 2010 were reviewedThe patients were analyzed accoring to sex, age, histopathological type, site of the tumor, local reccurence and distant metastasis. Results: The mean age for all patients was 45.34±17.42 year. In this study among the minor salivary gland tomurs, 180 benign (43.8%) and 232 malignant (61.2%) lesions, were reviewed. The two most common tumors were pleomorphic adenoma (146 cases, 35.4%) and mucoepidermoid carcinoma (91 cases, 22.0%), and the most commonly affected site was the palate (234 cases, 56.7%). The highest incidence was found in patients in the 5–7th decade of life, and males were more commonly affected than females in the vast majority of various histological types of tumors. Conclusion: Large series of intra-oral minor salivary gland tumors help to understand their clinical and pathological aspects and consequently their proper management and prognosis. Further, tumors characteristics and survival data for the Iranian population are compareable to those from western countries.