ABSTRACT
Many diseases affect the breast that range from inflammatory conditions, benign lesions to malignant lesions, most of which present as lumps in the breast. Breast lumps are one of the frequent complaints that we come across in surgical OPDs. Breast lumps not only create apprehension but also can cause unacceptable pain and impairment if they are found to be malignant. Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC), Tru-Cut biopsy, incision biopsy and excision biopsy are the pathological investigations available for the diagnosis of breast lesions. This study is done to evaluate the role of Tru-Cut biopsy in diagnosing the breast lesions and compare it with FNAC and histopathology.METHODSThis prospective study is conducted in the Department of General Surgery at a tertiary care centre from September 2015 to November 2016 among patients attending surgical OPD and admitted in general surgical wards with clinically palpable breast lumps.RESULTSThe sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and diagnostic accuracy of FNAC were 86.36%, 93.75%, 90.47%, 90.90% and 90.74 % respectively. For Tru-Cut biopsy the values were 95.45%, 100%, 100%, 96.96 % and 98.14 % respectively.CONCLUSIONSTru-Cut biopsy has better efficacy over FNAC in our study. The superiority of Tru-Cut biopsy is particularly seen in Sclerosing, papillary, fibro-epithelial lesions and malignancies with inconclusive and suspicious FNAC results.