Fine needle aspiration in the diagnosis and management of solid breast lesions

Follow-up data were obtained for 449 fine needle aspirations of solid breast masses from January 1979 through December 1980. The accuracy with which a concordant benign or malignant diagnosis was made was 92 percent. There was a 9.6 percent false-negative rate and a 0.9 percent false-positive rate. Emphasis was placed on the utility of fine-needle aspiration for assessing patients with chronic fibrocystic disease. In 104 cases, patients with a benign cytologic report were followed clinically for 12 months or more. There was a 1.7 percent false-negative rate in this group of patients. We stress that a biopsy should be immediately performed on any worrisome mass, despite the repeatedly negative results of fine needle aspiration. Guidelines for the prevention of false-negative and unsatisfactory cytologic reports have been presented herein. We believe that by careful clinical assessment of the mass, careful performance of the procedure, and close follow-up of the patient, the number of inaccurate fine needle aspirations can be kept at a minimum.