RESUMO
Introduction: Breast lesions are a common cause of morbidity and mortality in women; with breast carcinoma being most common female cancer worldwide, requiring prompt diagnosis. Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a valuable diagnostic tool with high degree of accuracy.Aims and objectives:To determine the accuracy of FNAC in diagnosis of palpable breast lumps. To correlate the cytological findings with histopathological examination of surgical specimens.Methods: We conducted a retrospective study from January 2016 to December 2017. FNAC of breast lump was performed in 271 patients out of which 104 patients underwent subsequent histopathlogical examination. These 104 patients were considered as our study group. Cyto-histopathological correlation was done in 104 patients.Results: The age range of 104 patients was 14-70 years. Mean age was 32 years ± 15 years. 54 patients presented with lump in left breast, 46 patients in right breast and 4 with bilateral lumps. Out of 104 patients, 77 cases were benign, 24 were malignant and 3 were atypical/suspicious lesions on cytological examination. On histopathological examination, 77 cases were benign, 26 were malignant and 1 was atypical/suspicious. Cyto-histological concurrence was 93.05% and 79.2% for Fibroadenoma and Infiltrating ductal carcinoma respectively. Overall sensitivity of FNAC procedure was 94.17%, specificity 100% and accuracy 93.26%. Conclusion: We concluded that FNAC is a simple, reliable method for diagnosis of both benign and malignant lesions and can be used in the evaluation of breast lesion.