Role of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology in Classifying Breast  Lesions with Special Reference to Borderline Cases

Authors

Naveen Kumar1 , Purva Sharma1 , Mamta Gupta2 , Sangeeta Sharma3 , Rani Bansal4 , Veena K. Sharma5

Breast lump, FNAC, Gray zone lesions.

Introduction- FNAC is a valuable tool in the preoperative assessment of breast masses with a primary goal

to separate malignant from benign masses.

Material and Methods- This study was conducted on 300 cases presenting with breast lump during the

last 3 years in a tertiary care hospital of Western Uttar Pradesh. FNAC was performed in all the cases and

smears were analysed and categorised according to NHSBSP classification. Cytohistologic correlation was

done wherever possible.

Results- Age of patients ranged from 8 years to 74 years with mean age of 32.4 years and female to male

ratio of 20.08:1. Majority of aspirates were in C2- benign category followed by C5 malignant, C4 suspicious

and C3 atypical respectively. Maximum number of aspirates were reported as fibroadenoma 42.27 %

followed by fibrocystic disease 33.7%. 9.12% were diagnosed as malignant lesions of which infiltrating

ductal carcinoma (89.65%) was the commonest.

Conclusion- FNAC is a safe, cost effective, highly sensitive and specific outpatient procedure useful in

early diagnosis and management of breast lesions and at times obviating the need of surgery. Borderline

(gray zone) lesions should be followed up.