Objectives: FNAC has been used in the pre-operative diagnosis of salivary gland lesions for many years. Existing literature has shown wide range of sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy of cytological diagnosis. This study was aimed at evaluating salivary gland FNAC for sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy at a tertiary care center. Materials and Methods: This study included 203 patients from January 2012 to June 2015 who underwent FNAC of salivary gland lesions. The cytological diagnosis was correlated with histopathology wherever possible. The appropriate statistical results were analysed. Results: Total 203 cases were studied. parotid gland-135,submandibular gland- 62,intraoral glands-5 and upper lip-1. FNAC categorised 58.6% of the salivary gland lesions as nonneoplastic and 41. 4% as neoplastic. Among nonneoplastic lesions 83. 9% were sialadenitis. Among neoplastic lesions 80. 95% were benign and 19. 05% were malignant. Cytohistopathologic correlation was available for 32 cases. Overall 25 cases showed 80. 6% correlation. There were 3 false positive cases. Specificity, sensitivity, positive and negative predictive values for malignant lesions were 100%, 50%, 100% and 89.65% respectively. Further statistical analysis showed a good cytohistologic agreement with kappa value of 0. 619. Conclusion: Adequate sampling,high quality smear preparation and established diagnostic criteria can help to diagnose majority of common benign and malignant salivary gland swellings with high level of accuracy. The findings of FNAC should be read in conjunction with clinical findings and in doubtful cases the true nature of the lesion should be confirmed by histopathological examination.

Keywords: Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology; Salivary Glands; Sensitivity; Specificity.