A review of research on cytological approach in salivary gland masses.

To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of fine-needle aspirations (FNAs) in salivary gland pathologies. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in the PubMed database using related Medical Subject Heading terms "sensitivity and specificity of FNA in salivary gland" and "diagnostic accuracy of FNA in salivary gland" for the period 1980-2016, and we found that 414 research studies had been published. PRISMA technology was utilized to prepare flow chart for displaying data search strategy. A total of 385 articles were excluded based on the established inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study. Twenty-nine research studies were included. Those twenty-nine studies on the sensitivity and specificity of FNAs in salivary gland pathology consisted of 5274 cases of benign, malignant and inflammatory salivary gland lesions. The present study identified a range of 87%-100% sensitivity and 90%-100% specificity for the usefulness of FNAs in distinguishing benign and malignant salivary gland lesions. Although a considerable number of studies have been identified that reported on sensitivity and specificity of FNAs in salivary gland pathologies, each study had a different approach in reporting the sensitivity and specificity. We emphasize that standardized reporting protocols of sensitivity and specificity report supported with checklists would help future researchers to interpret this cytological method and make more accurate clinical utility and usefulness reports on salivary gland pathologies.