Fine needle aspiration of palpable breast lesions results obtained with PAP and MGG with histopathological correlation-a hospital based study

Breast carcinoma is the leading cause of cancer death in women. Most of the time breast carcinoma presents as breast lump. Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) is a convenient and rapid preoperative diagnostic procedure. In this prospective study, FNAC was performed in patients presenting with breast lump and its findings were correlated with histopathological findings. Out of total 200 cases of breast FNAC, 87 cases had histopathology correlation. There were 68 cases (34%) which were labeled as malignant, 8(4%) cases were found to be suspicious or atypical, 101 (50.5%) cases were found to be benign on FNAC and in 23 cases (11.5%) the results were unsatisfactory. All the 87 cases with confirmed diagnosis were in the age group of 16 to 70 years. Breast lumps were most commonly seen in age group 21 to 30 years which comprises of benign lesions. Maximum number of malignancy was seen in age group 41 to 50 years. Out of 87cases, malignancy was seen in 41 cases. The most common carcinoma was Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (IDC) with 37 out of 87 (42.5%) cases. With correlation of FNAC and histopathology, the sensitivity and specificity of both benign and malignant lesions were high. In malignant lesions, the sensitivity and specificity were 97.56% and 97.82% respectively. FNAC is a safe diagnostic procedure in the preoperative diagnosis of breast lumps in our setting. It gives the accurate result with proper technique and interpretation.