Evaluation of needle aspirates and tissue sections as prognostic factors in mammary carcinoma.

The prognostic influence in operable mammary carcinoma of morphologic predictors evaluated in smears of needle-biopsy aspirate and in tissue sections and of clinical stage was investigated. Size of nuclei in smears of aspirate was found to convey prognostic information of the same order of importance as the variables tubule information and mitotic frequency in tissue sections. The combination of clinical stage with variables in smears and in sections enhanced the explanatory value.