A Review of Signet Ring cells in Salivary Gland Tumors

Objectives: Signet Ring Cells (SRCs) are often seen in gastrointestinal, breast, bile duct and lung invasive carcinomas. Observing these cells in benign and malignant lesions of the salivary glands is not common. Signet-ring cell adenocarcinoma is rare and is commonly seen in the secondary salivary glands. Although, the presence of SRCs in other neoplasms of the body is usually associated with poor prognosis, the prognosis and the survival of malignant tumors of the salivary glands containing SRCs are not well known and few studies have been done. Materials and Methods: In this review article, 18 articles were reviewed from 1984 to 2017 using the pubmed, Google scholar and MEDLINE searches with the keywords Salivary glands, parotid, submandibular, sublingual, and signet ring cells. Results: Viewing SRCs in the salivary glands is not common. Although the Signet Ring Cell Adenocarcinoma has a low incidence, some of them may have been reported as NOS and in fact have a higher incidence. Conclusion: Signet ring cell Adenocarcinoma of the salivary glands is in differential diagnosis with more common tumors of these glands, and further studies are needed to determine the exact prevalence of these salivary tumors that contain SRCs and it seems necessary to predict their biological behavior.