Correlation between histopathologic and fine needle aspiration cytology diagnosis of palpable breast lesions: a five-year review.

Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) of the breast has been used as an initial investigative procedure of palpable breast lesions. The purpose of this study is to evaluate our experience with Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) and to correlate between histopathologic and FNAC diagnoses of palpable breast lesions. A 5-year retrospective study was performed using records of all patients who had had both FNAC and histopathologic results of breast lumps. This is a retrospective study of 220 diagnosed cases of breast lesion at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH), Nigeria between the periods of January 2001 and December 2005. The results of the FNAC were interpreted as inflammatory, benign, suspicious or malignant. A total of 220 patients had both cytopathologic and histopathologic diagnoses and therefore fulfilled the criteria for this study. There were 11 (5%) cases of inflammatory, 140 (63.6%) cases of benign and 69 (31.4%) cases of malignancy. There were two cases that were suspicious of malignancy and for the purpose of this study were considered as malignant. There were five (5) cases of cytologically interpreted errors which were three cases of false negative and two cases of false positive. The diagnostic accuracy was 97.7%, sensitivity was 95.7%: and specificity was 98.7%. The false negative and false positive rates were 2.9% and 1.9% respectively. FNAC of breast lesions is sensitive, specific, and highly accurate as the initial investigation of palpable breast lesions in our tertiary hospital. We therefore implore clinicians to embrace this procedure in the management of patients.