Clinicopathological evaluation of salivary gland lesions in the southeast of Iran

Geographic and racial factors affect the incidence of salivary gland lesions. This study surveyed the prevalence of salivary gland lesions in Zahedan and compared them with other epidemiological studies.
In this cross-sectional and retrospective study, of a total of 1112 biopsies taken from oral and maxillofacial lesions during an 11-year period (2002–2012) that were available in the Pathology Department archives of medical centers of Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, 95 biopsies (8.54%) were found to be related to salivary gland lesions. Lesion types and demographic data of patients such as age, gender and location of lesions were obtained from patient records and analyzed using Fisher's exact test and Student’s t-test (α = 0.05).
The mean age of the patients was 31.6±15.6 years and male-to-female ratio was 1:1.1. The incidence of neoplastic lesions in women was twice that in men, while most of the non-neoplastic lesions were found in the men. The most affected locations were the submandibular gland (27.7%) and lip (27.7%). Mucocele (30.6%) was the most common non-neoplastic lesion; pleomorphic adenoma (21%) and mucoepidermoid carcinoma (7.3%) were the most common benign and malignant neoplastic lesions of salivary glands, respectively.
Generally, non-neoplastic lesions were more prevalent than neoplastic lesions and most lesions had occurred in the minor salivary glands. There were small differences in the frequency and distribution of salivary gland lesions between the population in this study and other populations.