Deepti Mahajan 1 , Kuldeep Singh 2
ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Fine needle aspiration cytology is a simple, inexpensive and an accurate procedure for the diagnosis of palpable breast masses. The present study aims to correlate the cytologic findings in palpable breast masses with the corresponding histologic diagnosis and to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of FNAC in distinguishing benign from malignant diseases of the breast in order to reiterate its usefulness in centres like ours where core needle biopsy is not yet established and practised. METHODS: Fifty patients with palpable breast lumps were subjected to fine needle aspiration cytology of the breast and a post-lumpectomy or mastectomy histologic correlation was obtained in all the cases except one. The accuracy of FNAC in diagnosing benign and malignant lesions of the breast was calculated. RESULTS: Benign diseases of the breast accounted for 38 (76%) of the 50 cases while the malignant lesions comprised of 12 cases (24%). The cyto-histologic concordance was 89.2% for benign lesions and 90.9% for malignant lesions of the breast. In distinguishing benign breast lesions from malignant lesions, the sensitivity of FNAC was 91.6%, the specificity 100%, positive predictive value 100%, negative predictive value 97.4%, false positive fraction was zero and the false negative fraction was 8.4%. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSION: The simplicity and accuracy of FNAC justifies its continued use either alone or in combination with core needle biopsy for preoperative diagnosis of palpable breast masses
