Breast Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology Reporting : A Study of Application of Probabilistic Approach.

ABSTRACT

Background: This study is based on application of probabilistic approach in reporting of breast fine needle aspiration cytology, its accuracy and correlation with likelihood of carcinoma in histology. Material and Method: Breast cytology was reported according to 1 of 6 categories, positive, suspicious, atypical, proliferative without atypia, unremarkable and unsatisfactory. Histologic correlation was done whenever possible. Results: Out of total 515 cases, 138 were correlated in histology. There were no false positive cases. The probability of finding carcinoma on histology, for suspicious and atypical categories was 94.11% and 75% respectively. All lesions from proliferative without atypia and unremarkable categories were benign on histology. Conclusion: The probabilistic approach is uniform, accurate method and easy to apply in reporting of breast FNAs. Suspicious and atypical categories were associated with increased incidence of carcinoma in histology and therefore such cases should be further evaluated for histology.