ACCURACY OF FINE NEEDLE ASPIRATION CYTOLOGY IN DIAGNOSING VARIOUS BREAST LESIONS WITH HISTOPATHOLOGICAL CORRELATION

BACKGROUND FNAC has become an important preoperative and screening test for breast masses. The sensitivity and specificity of the procedure are extremely high when combined with clinical examination and imaging. Main objective is to separate malignant lesions that require prompt surgical excision from benign ones. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The present study was undertaken to know the accuracy of FNAC in diagnosing various breast lesions and its histopathological correlation. MATERIALS AND METHODS A prospective study was conducted over duration of 18 months from January 2012 to June 2013. FNACs were performed on 124 breast lesions and correlated with HPE in 45 cases. RESULTS Out of 124 FNACs done, benign breast lesions predominated with 102 cases followed by malignant lesions which were 22 in number. Biopsies were obtained for all the malignant lesions and in only 23 cases for benign lesions. Among 23 benign cases, excisional biopsies obtained all correlated with the cytological diagnosis. Among the 22 malignant breast lesions, 2 were reported as benign on FNAC (False negative in disease). Overall Sensitivity, Specificity and false negative percentage values were 95.55%, 100% and 4.44% respectively. CONCLUSION FNAC of the breast is a simple, cost effective, accurate, quick and relatively less painful procedure. Our study concluded that an occasional false negative case makes it mandatory to biopsy and subject it for histopathological examination before mastectomy in cases where clinical and cytological diagnosis do not concur and also in cases where the diagnosis of malignancy on cytology is suspicious.