Background : Salivary gland neoplasms are relatively rare.Fine–needle aspiration (FNA) is a well–established diagnostic approach for salivary gland lesions. However, there is lack of a standard system of terminology for classification of salivarygland.He Wang et al. conducted a study in which they classified the reporting of salivary lesions. Our study aimed at using the classification system proposed by He Wang et al and assessing the inter–observer variations made during the diagnosis of salivary gland neoplasms in FNA smears based on the proposed classification and later comparing the result to histopathological diagnosis wherever possible.

Materials and methods:

A data set of 29 samples of known salivary gland lesionwas analyzed.2–blinded observers reviewed cytology smears of these cases retrospectively. These lesions were placed in the categories proposed by He Wang et al. by the observers and this was later compared to the histopathological /clinical diagnosis to assess the feasibility of the same.

Results:A total of 29 cases of salivary gland lesions, which came to our hospital from January 2014 to April 2016, were taken.11(37.9%) cases were males and 18(62.1%) were females.   The age of the patients ranged from 18 years to 81 years. Most common gland affected was parotid gland(62.1%) followed by submandibular gland(37.9%). There was almost an equal distribution of neoplastic and non–neoplastic cases(ratio=1.07:1).(Table1). A predominance of benign neoplasm was noted amongst the neoplastic group of lesions.(Table 2) Pleomorphic adenoma was  the most commonly encountered neoplastic lesion followed by warthins tumor.

Conclusion:In our study, we concluded that using the new reporting can decrease ambiguity in clinicians‘ interpretation of cytology reports, thus benefitting subjects. However, further study on a larger sample size needs to be done to establish the validity of the same.