A palpable breast lump is a common diagnostic problem to both surgeons and general practitioners. Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a simple, safe, rapid, minimally invasive, cost effective method for diagnosing breast lesions with minimal or no morbidity. The main purpose of FNAC is preoperative diagnosis or determination of clinically suspected breast cancers and to avoid unnecessary surgery in specific benign conditions. With the triple test assessment, of which, FNAC is an important component, majority of the breast lesions can be diagnosed confidently. As FNAC is an outpatient based procedure, the rapid diagnosis provided by FNAC relieves patient’s anxiety, allows the definite treatment decisions to be made immediately and thus saves time. This study was carried out on 200 patients presenting with breast lump. The cyto-histopathological correlation was obtained in 84 cases. Out of 200 cases, 143 (71.5%) cases were diagnosed as benign and 47 cases (23.5%) as malignant and 10 (5%) as suspicious of malignancy. The most common benign lesion was fibroadenoma and the most common malignant lesion was infiltrating ductal carcinoma. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy was found to be 100%, 98.46%, 95%, 100% and 98.8% respectively. There is a good correlation between FNAC and histopathology. As FNAC is highly accurate for palpable lesions, it delivers good results and serves as a reliable tool for the diagnosis of palpable breast lesions so that management of the patients can be done effectively. 

Keywords: FNAC, breast lump, breast carcinoma, fibroadenoma, triple test.

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Dr Pallavi Uttamrao Waghmare

Department of Pathology, Government Medical College and Hospital, Miraj, Maharashtra, India

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