Abstract: Objective：To evaluate the feasibility of fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in diagnosing vascular abnormality in oral and maxillofacial region. Methods： The method of retrospective study was used. The data from the patients who underwent FNAC from 2011 to 2014 in Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Peking University School of Stomatology were collected. All the included patients were divided into surgery group and non-surgery group. The patients in surgery group underwent lesion resection and the postoperative pathological results were gained. The patients in non-surgery group underwent periodical sclerotherapy. The accuracy of FNAC was identified by histopathologic diagnosis in surgery group and the effect of sclerotherapy in non-surgery group. Results: In this study, 93 patients were involved, including 51 males and 42 females. The median age was 2.5 years. Among them, 67 cases were judged as vascular abnormality by FNAC, and 63 cases were in consistent with final diagnosis and 4 cases were not. Among the other 26 cases which were diagnosed as other diseases by FNAC, 5 cases were accorded with final diagnosis. Therefore, the sensitivity of FNAC on diagnosis of vascular abnormity was 93% and its specificity was 84%. Among them, there were 29 cases  in the surgery group and 64 cases in the non-surgery group. FNAC results were in consistent with the postoperative pathological results in 20 cases in surgery group (69%), and not consistent with pathological results in 9 cases . The pathological diagnoses included vascular malformations (3 cases), neurofibromas (2 cases), hamartoma (1 case), sebaceous cyst (1 case), adenolymphoma (1 case), and descriptive diagnosis (1 case). In non-surgery group, FNAC results were in consistent with the clinical effect of sclerotherapy in 61 cases (95%). There were 3 misdiagnosed cases. The coincident rate between the result of FNAC and that of pathological or clinical diagnosis was 86%. Conclusion: FNAC is a feasible and minimal invasive method to diagnose vascular abnormality in oral and maxillofacial region.

Key words: Fine-needle aspiration cytology, Vascular abnormalies, Diagnosis