Role of fine needle aspiration cytology in the diagnosis of breast lumps and its histopathological correlation.

Lumps in breast may be due to benign or malignant lesions. Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology is a quick, simple and inexpensive procedure in diagnosis of these lesions. This helps the clinician in planning the correct surgical or medical treatment. Two hundred and twenty two fine needle aspirations were done on breast lesions. There were 205 satisfactory smears out of which 144 were benign lesions, 61 malignant lesions. Seventeen were unsatisfactory smears. Histopathology correlation was done in 126 benign lesions, 44 malignant lesions and 12 unsatisfactory smears. The cytological correlation for benign and malignant lesions was 91.09% and 91.6%, respectively. There were false negatives which were due to extensive necrosis or due to scanty aspirate. There were no false positives in this study.