Fine-needle aspiration cytology in the detection of breast cancer in nonsuspicious lesions.

Abstract

In 1988, fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) was performed on 222 consecutive patients who underwent screening mammography and had benign-appearing opacities. FNAC was also performed in 2,248 consecutive symptomatic patients with clinically palpable masses and mammograms that were considered within normal limits. FNAC, performed with a 23-gauge needle, helped detect three unsuspected cancers in the 222 screened patients and eight unsuspected malignancies in the 2,248 symptomatic patients. Only one of every 225 nonsuspicious masses proved to be malignant, but, without FNAC, there would have been no way to know which mass was a newly surfacing carcinoma. FNAC not only helped detect early cancers, but its negative findings resulted in sparing patients the ordeal of surgical biopsy for benign conditions. The low lymph node metastatic rate of 18% suggests that patients with FNAC-depicted cancers have a prognosis as promising as those patients with mammographically detected malignancies.