Introduction: Breast lesions are very common in India. FNAC is a reliable method for the initial evaluation and diagnosis of palpable masses of the breast.

Objectives: 1. To study the cytological features of palpable breast lumps.

2. To correlate the cytological and histological features.

Material and Methods: Present study was carried out on 84 patients who presented with palpable breast lumps. Cytological evaluation was done along with histological correlation. Sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy of FNAC were calculated.

Results: Out of the 84 cases, 62 were benign (73.8%) while 22 were malignant (26.1%). On histological correlation, out of the 62 benign cases cytologically, 60 were benign histologically also while 2 turned out to be malignant on histology. On the other hand, out of the 22 malignant cases on cytology, 21 cases were malignant on histology as well while 1 case turned out to be benign.

Conclusion: FNAC has a very high sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy along with low cost and few side effects. Thus, it is quite useful for the diagnosis of breast lumps and can be an important tool in screening of breast cancer patients.

Keywords: Cytological evaluation, breast lumps.

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Dr Lalit Mohan Patel

Senior Resident, Department of Radiotherapy, NSCB Medical College, Jabalpur, India