DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2017.v05i11.012

Pages: 4366-4370

The most common sign and symptom of breast disease is a palpable mass. Lumps in breast may be due to benign or malignant lesions. FNAC and core needle biopsy both procedures are used as a screening test in suspicious breast lesions. Objective of this study was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of FNAC and core needle biopsy in detection of palpable breast lesion with the goal of identifying a sensitive, specific, efficient and economical approach to diagnose breast masses. This study included a total of 50 patients presenting with palpable breast lesions to Northern Railway Central Hospital (NRCH), New Delhi from May 2012 to June 2015. All the patients underwent fine needle aspiration cytology and core needle biopsy. Later on all of them had excision biopsy or mastectomy. The results were then compared with the final diagnosis by histopathology.In the fifty patients selected for study the age ranged from 16–80 years with a mean age of 41.62 years. In our study, the sensitivity of FNAC procedure was 92%, 96% specificity, 94% accuracy, 95.83% PPV and 92.31% NPV, while CNB was 96% sensitive, 100% specific, 98% accurate, 100% PPV and 96.15% NPV. Fine needle aspiration cytology from predominant number of patients had similar results in terms of sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, PPV and NPV as compared to core biopsy. Thus use of the appropriate combination of FNAC and/or core biopsy is the best approach for the diagnosis of breast lesions.