Introduction

It is truly an honor to be invited to be the guest editor of an issue of Operative Techniques in Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery. What's more, the issue focusses on one of my favorite subjects: salivary gland pathology and surgery. When considering parotid tumors alone, the incidence is approximately 4/100,000 in the United States. The current census of the United States is 324 million and approximately 25% of whom are children1. If one assumes that 243 million Americans over the age 18 are at risk for developing these tumors, then approximately 10,000 parotid tumors will occur and potentially present each year.