Acinic cell tumor of parotid gland is uncommon. In 1892, Nasse first described four
parotid adenomas composed of cells similar to normal acinus cells. Since then, many
additional reports have appeared. In view of the presumed benign course and the
dominant type of cells resembling normal serous acidic cell, the name "acinic cell
adenoma" was introduced. However, Buxton et al. first described that some of these
lesions were malignant and they classified them into two categories. The one was
serous cell adenoma which was benign lesion, and the other was serous cell
adenocarcinoma which was the malignant counterpart, though the latter didn't exibit the
usual morphologic criteria of malignancy. Since then, investigations have disclosed that
this type of tumor was not benign but could both recur and metastasize hematogenously
even to the lung. Godwin et al. had proposed the term "acinic cell adenocarcinoma", but
currently the usual term is acinic cell tumor due to its slow growing nature.
We describe a case of acinic cell tumor of parotid gland with brief review of the
literature and a discussion concerning clinical, histopathological and histogenetic aspects.
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