Tumours of salivary glands display a great histological variability, and differ in clinical behaviour from entirely benign tumours to highly aggressive carcinomas with a fatal outcome. The presented paper is an overview of up-to-date prognostic possibilities in salivary carcinomas. The paper deals with clinical, histopatological and biological factors, and shows their significance and pitfalls. In spite of many new methods and findings the prediction of these tumors in individual cases still remains difficult and depends on combined evaluation of particular factors.

        Key words: salivary gland neoplasms, carcinoma, prognosis, staging, grading, biological markers.