Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in pre-operative diagnosis of breast lesions in Kadapa region of Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

Background: Various diagnostic methods have been developed to evaluate the palpable and non-palpable breast lesions, but Fine needle aspiration cytology of the palpable breast masses have become increasingly popular as a diagnostic technique to assess the breast lesions. To study the role of FNAC in diagnosis of breast lumps.Methods: 60 female patients (11-74 years age group) with palpable breast lump were utilized to study the role of Fine needle aspiration cytology for clinically palpable breast lump was carried out in Fathima Institute of Medical Sciences, Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh.Results: Fine needle aspiration cytology revealed benign in 22 patients, suspicious in 3 and 35 malignant lesions were 93.10% with false negative rate of 6.9% and false positive rate of 0%. The overall sensitivity of fine needle aspiration cytology in diagnosing the palpable breast lump in our study was 93.10%, specificity was 100%, positive predictive of 100% and negative predictive value of 90.47%.Conclusions: FNAC is easy to perform and painless procedure and standard tool for diagnosis of breast lumps with high percentage of true positives without virtual complications.