Papillary cystadenoma of a minor salivary gland: report of a case involving cytological analysis and review of the literature

A 91-year-old man presented with an asymptomatic swelling in the roof of his mouth. Clinically the lesion was nontender and appeared cystic. A CT scan showed a soft tissue swelling of his palate with no bony involvement. An orthopantogram and blood tests were noncontributory. A fine-needle aspiration biopsy was suggestive of a minor salivary gland neoplasm. An excision biopsy showed papillary cystadenoma of the minor salivary gland, with numbers of psammoma bodies. A stepwise approach is demonstrated in the diagnosis of this rare minor salivary gland neoplasm. To the authors' best knowledge, this is the 12th case of this tumor seen in the palate. Furthermore, no previous case has included a fine-needle aspiration biopsy in the work-up, the cytological features of which will be described.