Prospects of fine needle aspiration biopsy of breast lesions from a tertiary care center of central India: Data from an untouched region

Abstract

BackgroundBreast cancer being the most common cause of cancer death among women, this study was planned to find out the effectiveness of FNAB (fine needle aspiration biopsy) as screening and diagnostic tool in resource poor setting lacking sophisticated imaging modalities. MethodologyA retrospective study comprising two year records of 588 patients undergone FNAB and their histopathological correlation was used to derive the epidemiology of palpable breast lumps, spectrum of lesions and efficacy of FNAB in our hospital set up. ResultsStudy comprises of 588 cases of which 538 (92.22%) were female and 50 (8.57%; P<0.0001) male. Male to female ratio was found to be 1:10.76. The mean age of presentation was 37.8±20.92years for male and 31.5±13.32years (P=0.04) for female. Among the various cytological findings fibroadenoma was found to be present in 304 (57.46%) female while male were flourishing with 41 (87.23%) gynecomastic. Out of 588 cases cytological spectrum defines benign, malignant, atypical, suspicious of malignancy and unsatisfactory as 464 (78.91%), 76 (12.92%), 28 (4.76%) and 12 (2.04%) respectively. The sampling adequacy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive and negative predictive value was found to be 97.95%, 100%, 87.80%, 79.16% and 100% respectively. Discussion and conclusionPresent study demands the further exploration of factors influencing the disparity in delayed reporting among male and female. Statistical figure of comparable adequacy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive and negative predictive value to other studies suggest that FNAB could be used as a good screening and diagnostic tool for breast lesions in resource poor settings which lacks sophisticated imaging techniques.