[Our experience with parotid cysts].

The cysts of the parotid gland are very rare lesions of congenital or acquired aetiopathogenesis. In most cases, the symptom is an unilateral painless swelling in the area of the parotid without any fixation to the overlying skin or any involvement of the facial nerve. These must be distinguished from neoplasms with a similar clinical presentation or neoplasms with a cystic component. Making the right preoperative diagnosis can be extremely difficult but the adequate therapy remains the superficial parotidectomy. However the final diagnosis is established histopathologically. The precise histological classification is often an elaborate task because of the similarities in the epithelial lining of the various cysts and the heterogeneity in their histogenic origin. In this study, the authors describe four cases of parotid cystis. They examine the clinical aspects, the preoperative diagnostic approach, the treatment and they analyse the histopathological findings. Finally, their results are compared with the data found in the international medical literature.