Introduction and Aim: Breast cancer is associated with increased morbidity and mortality and recent trends have shown increased incidence among younger women. There is, therefore, an imminent need to raise the level of awareness among the women in the entire population. The present study was carried out to evaluate the level of awareness among urban women in South India.   Methodology: This hospital based cross sectional study was carried out among 1000 adult women who visited the outpatient clinics of our tertiary care hospital for various illness.  The level of awareness regarding breast cancer was elicited based on the risk factors of breast cancer, symptoms, and role of family history. Awareness regarding the tools for early detection, management and preventive measures was also elicited.   Results: The study observed that 78.9% of the participants who were illiterates had no awareness of the symptoms, while 57.9% of the participants with high school level education were unaware of the symptoms. Regarding the role of genetics in breast cancer occurrence, 47% of the illiterate participants reported that breast cancer is not hereditary. It was observed that lack of awareness regarding the early detection was prevalent among 81%, 87% and 93% of the participants who were illiterate, primary, and middle school level educated respectively.   Conclusion: The present study has also elucidated the lack of adequate knowledge on important facts regarding the breast cancer is alarming and this needs to be addressed with due focus on providing health education by health care providers at various levels of health system.

Purpose: To evaluate the accuracy of breast shear wave elastography (SWE) and p63 immunohistochemistry (IHC) in the diagnosis of indeterminate breast lesions. Methods: Based on detailed clinical examination and a combination of X-ray mammography/B-mode ultrasound with SWE, a total of 40 patients with breast lumps (BI-RADS 4) were included. Patients with previous diagnosis of breast cancer and a previous history of surgery, chemotherapy, or radiotherapy in the same breast as the present lesion were excluded. Core needle biopsy of the breast lesion was performed, and p63 IHC staining was performed. A final histopathological report of the definitive procedure was considered as the gold standard. The sensitivity, specificity, positive (PPV) and negative predictive values (NPV), and accuracy were calculated for each modality. Results: The mean age of the patients included in the study was 50.85 ± 13.53 years. Of the 40 patients recruited, 23 were clinically malignant and 17 were benign. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and accuracy of SWE were 91.3%, 94.1%, 95.5%, 88.9%, and 92.5% and those of p63 IHC were 95.7%, 100%, 100%, 94.4%, and 97.5%, respectively. Overall, the parametric values were higher for p63 IHC as compared to clinical examination and elastography. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) for p63 IHC (.978) was higher than those for SWE (.927) and clinical examination (.898). Conclusion: SWE and p63 IHC are highly reliable novel modalities that demonstrate enhanced diagnostic accuracy of indeterminate breast lesions aiding in the early initiation of appropriate treatment and reducing the number of women subjected to biopsy or short-term follow-up for benign-appearing solid breast lesions.

Porcelain gall bladder is a rare entity and a morphological variant of chronic cholecystitis. Dystrophic calcification along with inflammatory scarring of the wall gives the porcelain nature to the gall bladder. Patients are mostly asymptomatic and incidentally diagnosed on X-ray, ultrasound or CT abdomen. In the early stages they can be a surprise as only a histopathological diagnosis. Prophylactic cholecystectomy is recommended in view of high risk of malignancy.