Mammography and Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) are safe, relaible and time saving modalities done on out patient basis with little discomfort to patient for diagnosing nature of breast lumps.

Aims: The aim was to evaluate diagnostic utility of mammography and FNAC individually and the combined together.

Methods and Material: This prospective study was carried in Department of pathology, Prathima institute of medical sciences, Nagunur, Karimnagar. Inclusion criteria was all those cases which were neoplastic in nature for which both FNAC and Mammography was done in same patient followed by histopathological examination and later statistical efficacy/ accuracy was calculated for both.

Results: In present study 64 cases were evaluated. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV for mammography and FNAC was calculated individually and the combined and by comparing the findings with histopathology. It was observed in the present study on combining the diagnostic modalities in the same patient all parameters were increased.

Conclusions: Diagnostic accuracy is high for both modalities. Considering patient's comfort, lack of requirement of anesthesia, rapid analysis and reporting and an absence of false positive results makes FNAC an ideal initial diagnostic modality in breast lumps. Mammography is very effective tool in screening breast lumps. Combinations of various diagnostic modalities increase the diagnostic accuracy for breast lumps with increase in all parameters.

Keywords:  breast lumps, mammography, fine needle aspiration cytology.

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Dr Sanna Nazir

Assistant Professor, KD Medical College, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India