Objective: Worldwide, the most accepted protocol for diagnosis of breast lumps is “Triple Assessment”, which includes clinical assessment, radiological imaging and pathological diagnosis. FNAC forms the most important aspect of cytopathology as a part of triple assessment. The aims of present study were to evaluate our results of aspiration cytology of breast lump and to establish the diagnostic accuracy of the technique by comparative evaluation with histopathological diagnosis of respective breast lump.

Materials and Methods: A prospective study of 50 patients was conducted at Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital, Muzaffarpur, Bihar. Patients were randomly selected, irrespective of their age, sex, religion, marital status, occupation or social status. FNAC was performed on 50 patients with breast lump attending the surgical OPD and admitted in the surgical ward. Irrespective of clinical diagnosis, patients underwent FNAC when a lump was palpated by Surgeon and subsequently every patient underwent a definitive surgical procedure for histopathological examination. The results thus obtained from FNAC and histopathology was matched and a correlation was obtained based on statistical tests.

Results: Age group of the patients ranged from 16 to 65 years. There were only one male patient of gynaecomastia and all other 49 were females. Statistical analysis was performed on the tabulated data and accuracy with false positive and false negative results were obtained. Accuracy of malignant lesions was 90%. Among benign lesions, gynaecomastia and chronic mastitis were diagnosed with 100% accuracy. The accuracy rate in diagnosing fibroadenoma and fibroadenosis was 90% and 85.71% respectively. Thus overall accuracy rate found to be 90%.’

Conclusion: FNAC of breast is simple, cost effective and less traumatic method for diagnosis of breast lump. FNAC can provide a preoperative diagnosis with reasonable accuracy as compare to histology. In advanced carcinoma or unwilling patients for surgery, it can form the basis of management. So FNAC should be used as a routine method for determining the nature of breast lump.

Keywords: FNAC, breast lump, neoplasm.

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Dr Satyendu Sagar

Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology, NMCH, Patna