Section 1 -

Introduction John Eveson and Silloo Kapadia

The remarkable morphologic diversity of epithelial tumors of the salivary glands (the three paired major glands and the minor salivary glands), at times even within the same tumor, and the relative infrequency of these tumors, makes the diagnosis complicated for the surgical pathologist. In addition, the morphologic variation of epithelial salivary gland tumors is reflected by their immunohistochemical diversity, which makes special stains less helpful in the routine pathologic diagnosis of tumors at these sites. In many meetings of recent years covering salivary gland neoplasms, the sessions have been devoted mainly to rare or recently characterized tumors. The intention of the current symposium is to revisit some of the more common, mainly malignant, tumors and for the speakers to provide a 'state- of- the -art' discussion, including clinical, macroscopic, microscopic, immunohistochemical, differential diagnosis, molecular genetic features, treatment and prognosis. Where appropriate, tumor grading will be considered. The tumors to be discussed are: carcinoma ex pleomorphic adenoma, mucoepidermoid carcinoma, oncocytic tumors, adenoid cystic carcinoma, acinic cell carcinoma and lymphoid lesions of salivary glands. References: Pathology and Genetics: Head and Neck Tumours, World Health Organization Classification of Tumours, p 209-282, Barnes L, Eveson JW, Reichart P, Sidransky D, eds; Kliehues P, Sobin LH, series eds. IARC Press, Lyon, 2005.