The spectrum of palpable breast lesions- A cytopathological study of 1193 cases

Abstract

Introduction- The vast majority of the lesions that occur in the breast are benign. Much concern isgiven to malignant lesions of the breast because female breast cancer has now surpassed lungcancer as the leading cause of global cancer incidence in 2020. Fine needle aspiration cytology(FNAC) has good sensitivity, specificity and accuracy in the diagnosis of both neoplastic and non-neoplastic breast lump thereby assisting in early diagnosis and further management. The currentstudy was done to study the incidence and the different cytomorphological patterns of palpablebreast lumps by FNAC and consequently compare the results with studies in the literature.Materials and methods- This is a retrospective study conducted from January 2018 to December2020 in a tertiary care hospital. The three-year data is obtained from the records maintained in theFNA clinic. The patients were counselled before the procedure and informed consent was taken.Results- A total of 1193 breast lump cases were analysed in this 3-year study, there were 19 malepatients all of them presented with gynaecomastia and 1177 female patients. The patient’s agegroup ranged from 12 to 86 years. The commonest age group with the lesions 31-40 yearscomprising 326 cases (27.32%) followed 21-30 years age group in the second place with 307 cases(25.7%). Conclusion- In this study the most common benign neoplastic and malignant neoplasticbreast lumps are fibroadenoma and infiltrating ductal carcinoma respectively. Fibrocystic disease ofthe breast is the most common non-neoplastic breast lump.