A Review of Our Experience of Surgery for Parotid Gland Neoplasms

Introduction: The aim of the study was to analyse patients presenting with parotid gland Swelling at our centre, treatment given and complications of surgery. Materials and methods: A retrospective analysis of medical records of patients operated by a single surgeon for parotid gland tumours were analysed from year 2005-2012. Results: For the above mentioned period 75 patients were operated of which 62 patients were primarily operated by us and 13 patients were operated elsewhere and later referred to us after recurrence. All patients underwent preoperative diagnosis by Fine needle aspiration cytology by an experienced pathologist and the sensitivity of diagnosing malignant lesion as malignant was 90.9% (20/22) (excluding 4 recurrent cases). The surgeries performed were superficial parotidectomy (34 patients), total parotidectomy (22 patients), partial superficial parotidectomy (4 patients), radical parotidectomy (3 patients), wide excision of recurrence (4 patients) and revision total parotidectomy with nerve conservation for recurrent cases in 8 patients. Ten patients of 72 patients (excluding 3 patients who underwent radical parotidectomy) developed facial nerve palsy 7 patients had temporary nerve palsy,2 patients had palsy of cervicofacial trunk and one patient who was operated for recurrence had complete facial nerve palsy. Three patients developed recurrence (two cases of pleomorphic adenoma and one case of undifferentiated carcinoma) after a mean follow up period of 28 months (Range 6 months64 months). Summary and Conclusion: Surgery of parotid gland is nothing but surgery of Facial nerve and in experienced surgeon's hands the risk of facial nerve palsy is minimum with good oncological control.