Frey’s syndrome is characterized by sweating in preauricular and temporary regions, minutes after chewing. This study analyzes the relationship between the outcome of the Frey syndrome depending on the surgery of parotid tumors. The aim is to show that Frey’s syndrome is related to the type of parotidectomy performed.

Materials and methods: This is a cohort study, a retrospective review of the parotid gland surgery, performed at the Hospital Miguel Servet in Zaragoza, which includes a data collected period of 10 years. We performed a total of 334 surgical procedures on the parotid gland. Statistical analysis was performed using survival analysis.

Results: From a total of 334 interventions, 102 (30.5%) were lumpectomy, of which 11 developed Frey’s syndrome. 178 (53.3%) interventions were superficial parotidectomies, of which 71 suffered Frey’s syndrome. We performed 54 (16.2%) total and radical parotidectomies with 20 events of Frey syndrome. The statistics revealed highly significant differences (Pearson χ ² test = 31.785, P < 0.001) between the time of onset of Frey’s syndrome and parotidectomy type.

Discussion: Time to develop Frey’s syndrome is lower as more gland tissue is removed. The survival function graph shows that lumpectomy always remains above the others.

Key words: Frey’s syndrome; parotidectomy; parotid tumor