Fine-needle aspiration cytology of an oncocytic carcinoma of the submandibular gland

Oncocytic Carcinoma of the Submandibular Gland

“…15 Most OCs develops in the parotid glands, 1,2,16 and OC arising in the submandibular glands is exceedingly rare—we could find fewer than 15 cases in the literature, and most of them were single case reports. 2,4-7 Excluding 3 cases described in non–English-language reports (1 Japanese and 2 German) and a few cases in which we could not confirm the diagnosis as OC, or which we considered duplicate publication, the summary of 10 cases including our case is shown in Table 2. From this, the following characteristics were identified: male-to-female ratio, 2.3 (7:3); mean age, 67.5 (range 53-82); tumor size, 1.7-7.0 cm (n = 8); lymph node metastasis at the time of diagnosis, 5/10 (3 cases were clinically negative); and follow-up, 6 months to 9 years (n = 8).…”

“…Documentation of FNAC of OC was found in several articles. 4 The differential diagnosis includes many tumors with oncocytoid cells. In our cases, malignancy was easily diagnosed because of the aspiration site—that is, from an enlarged cervical lymph node, as in the case of Nakada et al 2 When FNA is performed from the salivary gland, it may be challenging to differentiate OC from oncocytoma as well as from other benign oncocytic tumors if the tumor cells of the OC have mild cytological atypia.…”

“…We can find fewer than 15 cases of submandibular OC in the English-language literature. 1-8 Therefore, prognostic information for it is truly limited, and we consider this single case of OC worth describing. In addition, morphological criteria of oncocytes have been based on electron microscopic examination for abundant and irregular mitochondria 9-11 or diffusely positive staining with phosphotungstic acid–hematoxylin (PTAH) staining or immunostaining using antimitochondria antibodies.…”