Quantitative analysis of nuclear area variation in benign and malignant breast fine needle aspirates

The measurement of nuclear area was carried out in 30 benign and 32 malignant breast lumps using Omnicon Alpha 500 Image Analyzer. The mean nuclear area of duct cells in malignant group was greater (157.6 +/- 58.64 sq.microns with a peak around 140 sq.microns) and more heterogenous within and amongst cases than observed in duct cells from most of the cases of fibroadenoma (85.05 ae 14.2 sq.microns with a peak around 80 sq.microns). Taking into consideration 110 sq.microns as a differentiating limit, a significant difference was observed between benign and malignant conditions (p). Similarly taking 118 sq.microns as differentiating limit duct cell carcinomas could be divided into two groups i.e. 9(28.1%) cases of small nuclear type with a range of 80-118 sq.microns and 23(71.9%) cases of large nuclear type with a range of 118-320 sq microns .6(18.8%) cases with small nuclei had an overlap with fibroadenoma. Although 13(72.2%) cases of large nuclear type carcinomas had lymph node metastasis as against 4(44.4%) in small nuclear group, the difference was not statistically significant.