Retrospective analysis of patients with neck masses who underwent surgery in our clinic over a 10-year period

This study aimed to determine the histopathological diagnoses of 1155 patients who underwent surgery for a neck mass between 2011 and 2020; It was carried out in order to reveal the distribution according to age, gender, side localization and years. A total of 1155 patients, 641 men and 514 women, were included in the study. Age, gender, mass localization (right, left or midline), histopathological diagnosis and operation date of all patients were recorded. Patients with obvious primary, thyroid derived lesions and patients whose pathology could not be determined clearly were excluded from the study. 55.5% of the patients were male, 44.5% were female, and the mean age was 42.56 ± 21.40 years. Histopathological diagnoses consisted of 21.9% congenital, 18.1% inflammatory, 33.6% benign neoplastic and 26.4% malignant neoplastic masses. When the distribution of the diagnosis groups according to the years was examined, no difference was found. However, there was a significant difference in age between all diagnostic groups(p<0.05). It was observed that the lowest mean age was in the congenital group, and the highest mean age was in the malignant neoplastic group. There was no significant difference between the diagnostic groups in terms of gender(p>0.05). There was a significant age difference between benign neoplastic lesions, pleomorphic adenoma and warthin tumor, and the incidence of warthin tumor was found to be higher with increasing age(p<0.05). When the analysis of mass settlement by age groups is compared; Midline masses were found to be significantly higher in the 0-17 age group(p<0.05). In lesions that cannot be diagnosed by other methods in patients presenting with a mass in the neck; Surgery should be performed for definitive histopathological diagnosis. Age and mass localization are important prognostic findings.