acinic cell carcinoma of the parotid gland with four morphological features

Acinic cell carcinoma arising in salivary glands is a rare tumor, accounting for 2% to 5% of the primary neoplasms of the parotid gland. when these tumors are welldifferentiated, the neoplasia has innocuous aspect, due to the similarity to normal parotid tissue. this makes the diagnosis difficult. initially the malignancy of this tumor was uncertain however, recent studies have declared it as malignant. the female / male ratio is 3:2. the nodule usually presents as solitary and well defined shape. several authors have used different terms to describe histomorphological patterns of these tumors. four descriptive categories (solid, microcystic, papillarycystic and follicular) are useful for pathologists. here we report a case of a 49 yr old man with a left parotid nodule of 5 cm. parotidectomy was performed at the hospital universitario miguel servet, in zaragoza (spain). the microscopy showed a tumor with acinic semblance, having the four morphologic patterns previously described. the morphological and immunohistochemical study was consistent with the diagnosis of acinic cell carcinoma.