Utility of fine-needle aspiration as a diagnostic technique in breast lumps

Fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a simple, accurate, and safe procedure for the diagnosis of palpable breast lumps. The purpose of this study is to emphasis the utilization of FNAC in the Sudan and to evaluate our experience to identify the types of various breast lesions. A one year descriptive longitudinal study was conducted in Khartoum, Sudan. We obtained information (patient's personal data) and Fine-Needle Aspiration (FNA) samples, for 200 patients with palpable breast lesions. Subsequent tissue biopsies were taken from 131 patients of the 200 studied patients. Data were analyzed using a computer's SPSS program. Pearson chi-square test was used for statistical analyses. The diagnoses of the 200 breast FNAs were as follows: 61 (30.5%) were malignant, 5 (2.5%) were suspicious, and 134 (67%) were benign lesions. Subsequent histopathological examination was performed on 61 (100%) patients with malignant lesions, 5 (100%) of suspicious, and 65 (48.5%) patients of 134 patients with benign lesions. FNAC revealed a 92.6% sensitivity, a 95.2% specificity, a 95.5% positive predictive value, and a 92.2% negative predictive value. Of the 65 benign cases on cytology, five cases were found malignant on histopathology. FNAC of breast lesions is sensitive, specific, and highly accurate as the initial investigation of palpable breast lesions in a population of low resources and without screening program to diagnose breast cancer. We consequently encourage clinicians to embrace this procedure in the management of patients.