False-positive and false-negative cases of fine-needle aspiration cytology for palpable breast lesions.
BACKGROUND
Fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNA) is less traumatic and technically easy to apply to small breast tumors.


METHODS
A total of 382 cases of palpable breast lesions that had undergone fine needle aspiration and histopathologic diagnosis were reviewed with an emphasis on the rate of false positive diagnoses in benign breast lesions.


RESULTS
A diagnosis of " malignant " was made in 98 of the 382 specimens (25.6%). The predictive value for malignancy was 97.9%. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of FNA were 86.3%, 98.2%, and 93.2%, respectively, when the " suspicious " group was considered positive for malignancy. The histologic subtypes of the 4 false-positive cases were epithelial proliferative lesions, ductal or lobular hyperplasia. None of these 4 cases were definitely diagnosed as " malignant " by radiological studies. Four false-negative cases by FNA were suspicious for malignancy radiologically. There was no specific pathological subtype associated with false-negative status on FNA in this study.


CONCLUSIONS
Palpable breast tumors can be definitively diagnosed based on a combination of physical examination, radiological studies and FNA, when the radiological studies concur with the diagnosis by FNA.
Ishikawa
Takashi
T
Department of Breast and Thyroid Surgery, Yokohama City University Medical Center, Yokohama, 232-0024, Japan. tishik@urahp.yokohama-cu.ac.jp
Hamaguchi
Yohei
Y
Tanabe
Mikiko
M
Momiyama
Nobuyoshi
N
Chishima
Takashi
T
Nakatani
Yukio
Y
Nozawa
Akinori
A
Sasaki
Takeshi
T
Kitamura
Hajime
H
Shimada
Hiroshi
H
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000473:pathology; D002288:Adenocarcinoma, Mucinous / Q000473:pathology; D000328:Adult; D001707:Biopsy, Needle; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D003581:Cytodiagnosis; D005188:False Negative Reactions; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D018299:Neoplasms, Ductal, Lobular, and Medullary / Q000469:parasitology; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity