Abstract

In the last four years, fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) has been performed on 220 patients, who had a solid mass in their breasts. In 19 cases (8.6%) adequate material couldn't be obtained in the first attempt. In 152 cases open biopsy is performed for the histological diagnosis. The cytological results were benign in 82 cases, but two of them were found to be malignant in histological examination. The cytological diagnosis was either malignant suspicious in 66 cases, 65 of them proved to be malignant by the histological examination and one was benign. The histological diagnosis of four cases, in which adequate material couldn't be obtained, was benign in two and malignant in the other two cases. The sensitivity is 94.2%, the specificity is 98.8%, the positive predictive value is 98.4% and the accuracy rate is 96.7% in our study. FNAB is an easy and rapid method in the differential diagnosis of breast masses. It has high reliability, less patient discomfort and no complications. It can be used either as a complement to the clinical and mammographical examination or as a single method in planning the definitive surgical therapy after gaining the sufficient experience and following the precise criteria for the cytological diagnosis of malignancy.