Abstract: Parotid tumours are the most common salivary gland tumours seen in outpatient dentistry. The current standard of care is facial nerve dissection + extended parotid tumour excision. However, this surgical method will cause obvious scar on the face and neck. With the attention of modern people on facial beauty, reducing scar has become an urgent task for clinicians. There are two main ideas to address this problem: to strive for smaller and more discreet incisions to complete the required exposure by using cosmetic incisions, or to use relatively small surgical incisions as an endoscopic approach with the aid of an endoscopic system to artificially create a cavity to remove the mass. With the development of imaging techniques and minimally invasive surgical instruments, endoscopic techniques are increasingly used in clinical surgery. In the field of oral and maxillofacial surgery, since the success of the first parotid endoscopic surgery in 2000, endoscopy has become the choice of more and more clinicians and patients because of its advantages of aesthetics. This article reviews the current surgical incisions and advantages as well as disadvantages of the endoscopic approach to parotid tumour removal.

Key words: parotid neoplasms, endoscopic surgery, parotidectomy, cosmetic incision