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Diagnostic accuracy of fine needle aspiration cytology of palpable breast masses in Benin City, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND
Beast cancer is the commonest malignancy afflicting women. It accounts for 18.4% of all female cancers worldwide.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the diagnostic accuracy of fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) of palpable breast masses at a Nigerian University Teaching Hospital..


METHODS
Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology was done on all consecutive cases of palpable breast masses referred from the surgical outpatient clinic of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital between January 2005 and March 2006. Comparison was made with subsequent histological diagnoses in order to ascertain the diagnostic accuracy of the procedure.


RESULTS
One hundred and three fine needle aspirates of breast masses were performed during the study period. Subsequent biopsies were done on 43 of these cases yielding a biopsy rate of 41.8%. The absolute and complete sensitivities of this study were 84.6% and 97.4% respectively. The full specificity was 64% while the specificity for biopsy cases was 75%. The positive predictive value for malignancies was 100% with a false positive rate of 0%; however the false negative rate was 2.6% with a suspicious rate of 9.7%. The inadequacy rate was 19.4%.


CONCLUSION
These results show that FNAC of palpable breast masses in UBTH is an accurate procedure with results comparable to those from other centres and well above the minimum standards recommended internationally. It is, therefore, recommended that FNAC be done on all palpable breast masses.