[Breast cytology. Its place in the diagnosis of tumors]

Our work consists in the review of the experience in our hospital over 9 months and 110 cases in which tumours of the breast were seen. In most of them a clinical study, a radiological study, a thermographic study and a cytological and histological study was carried out. This shows that an examination of the ctyology is a very useful addition to the work-up to be carried out before therapy is started. The difficulty in cytology of the breast lies in the obviously serious problems in interpretation of the appearances, and explains why there are 2.7% of false negatives and 0.9% of false positives. All the same we think that we can find out how to lessen the number of these failures in diagnosis by a better knowledge of the traps to be found in breast cytology. Far from being a substitute for pathological anatomy, cytology is an indispensable complement to the study of the pathology of the breast.