Establishing an accurate diagnosis of a parotid lump: evaluation of the current biopsy methods – fine needle aspiration cytology, ultrasound-guided core biopsy, and intraoperative frozen section

The optimum technique for histological confirmation of the nature of a parotid mass remains controversial. Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC), which has traditionally been used, is associated with high non-diagnostic and false negative rates, and ultrasound (US)-guided core biopsy and frozen section have been explored as alternatives. US-guided core biopsy is more invasive than FNAC, but is safe, well-tolerated, and associated with improved diagnostic performance. Although frozen section offers better specificity than FNAC, it has a number of important drawbacks and cannot be considered as a primary diagnostic tool. US-guided core biopsy should be considered as the initial diagnostic technique of choice, and in units where the accuracy of FNAC is good it can be used when FNAC is equivocal or non-diagnostic.