Background: In women, malignancy of breast imposes significant reduction in life span. So, FNAC is a widely accepted cytological technique in the early diagnosis of palpable breast lesions. For making further appropriate therapeutic decision intra-operative frozen section is used. Ultimately, histopathological study remains the confirmatory test in final diagnosis of breast lesions. There have been many studies of comparison of efficacy of FNAC, Frozen section and histo-pathological study which has been shown to be high in many centres.

Aim: To compare cytological and histopathological diagnosis of breast lesions and Frozen section and histopathological diagnosis of breast lesions and to establish accuracy of each of them as an diagnostic aid.

Material and Methods: FNAC of 51 cases of palpable breast lesions were evaluated retrospectively between January 2018 to June 2019. Only those cases which underwent frozen section and subsequent histopathological follow‑up for confirmative diagnosis were included. FNAC, Frozen section diagnosis and Histopathological diagnoses then correlated to assess the efficacy in diagnosis of palpable breast lesions. Males and non-palpable breast lesions were excluded.

Results: The present study showed sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, and negative predictive values of FNAC in relation to Histopathological diagnosis of breast lesions as 94.44%, 84.85 %, 88.24%,77.27%, and 96.55% respectively. Also the present study showed sensitivity of 88.89%, specificity of 87.89%,positive predictive value of 80.00%, negative predictive value of 93.55% and accuracy of 88.24% on Frozen section in relation to Histopathological study.

Conclusion: FNAC is thus a rapid, cost-effective highly sensitive and highly specific first minimal invasive method in diagnosing breast lumps. But Frozen is also sensitive and specific and has also a definite role in settings like difficult cytology, evaluation of lumpectomy margins and intra operative nodal status. But the histopathological study is still considered as a gold standard in the final diagnosis.

Keywords: FNAC; Frozen section; Histopathological study; palpable breast lesions; Malignancy of Breast.

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Dr Makode A.J.

Dr Shankarrao Chavan Medical College and Hospital, Vishnupuri, Nanded, India