Cytomorphologic patterns of breast lesions in Sudanese patients: lessons learned from fine needle aspiration cytology.

BACKGROUND

Cytology for breast lesions is a safe, rapid and cost-effective with a high specificity and sensitivity.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the cytomorphologic patterns of breast lesions identified among a group of Sudanese patients.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

This study included 759 patients undergoing either a fine needle aspiration FNA, nipple discharge (ND) smears or breast skin scraping (SS) at a cytology clinic in Khartoum. Clinical and demographic data were reviewed. Stained smears were categorized into: inadequate sample, normal breast, benign lesion, suspicious, or malignant neoplasm.

RESULTS

of the 759 cases, 734 (96.71%) were FNA, 18 (2.37%) ND and 7 cases (0.92%) SS. For 28 cases, FNA was done under ultrasound guidance. Females were 720 (94.86%). Benign lesions were 423(55.75%) and 248 (32.67%) were malignant and 77 (10.14%) of smears were normal without any detected abnormality. Ten (1.31%) cases were suspicious for malignancy, and only one case (0.13%) was reported as inadequate. Most lesions were observed among the age group 30 years and above.

CONCLUSION

Most patients investigated have benign lesions, one third of cytological smears were malignant. FNAC is a useful tool for investigating breast lesions in limited-resource settings.