The spectrum of cytological morphology in breast lump at a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Background: Breast lumps are a source of anxiety for both patients and surgeons due to the possibility of cancer. In benign lesions, cytology plays the most crucial function in identifying proliferative lesions.Aims and objectives: To evaluate the spectrum of fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) morphology in patients with a breast lump.Materials and methods: A hundred females aged between 13 to 80 years with breast lumps were studied in the Department of Pathology for the duration of the study. FNAC using 10 cc syringes with 22-23G needle under all aseptic precautions were performed. Breast lesions were categorized into C1(Insufficient material), C2 (Benign), C3 (Atypical probably benign), C4 (Suspicious for malignancy), and C5 (Malignant) as per the International Academy of Cytologists (IAC). Results: Breast lumps were more prevalent in those aged between 31-50 years (50%) with a mean age of 41.76±15.57 years. The upper quadrant was mainly affected (52.94%) with firm and mobile breast lumps (41%). Distribution according to IAC showed that 13% were graded as C1, 47% were C2, 4% were C3, 11% were C4 category, and 25% were C5 patients.Conclusion: The use of IAC structured reporting for cytological categorization will improve the repeatability of reports among pathologists and doctors. The cytoprognostic scores will aid in determining the aggressiveness of the tumor and forecast histological grade and prognosis by comparing cytohistological nuclear grading. It could be a helpful criterion for neoadjuvant chemotherapy selection.