Fibroadenoma: Accuracy of clinical diagnosis in females aged 25 years or less.

BACKGROUND

Accurate clinical diagnosis of fibroadenoma in young females is desirable because of the possibility of nonoperative treatment for those desiring it.

OBJECTIVES

To determine the accuracy of the clinical diagnosis of fibroadenoma in patients aged ≤ 25 years.

PATIENTS AND

METHODS

A prospective study of all patients with breast disease presenting to the breast clinic was conducted from January 2004 to December 2008.

RESULTS

During the study period, 145 patients aged ≤25 years presented with breast lumps. In this group, a clinical diagnosis of fibroadenoma was made in 100 (69.0%), fibrocystic disease in 32 (22.1%), breast cancer in 4 (0.03%) patients, the remaining were benign lesions. Excision biopsy was done for 81 (55.9%) patients. Of these 81 patients, only 62 (76.5%) returned with histology report. The histological diagnosis was fibroadenoma in 45 (72.5%) patients with a mean age of 21.4 years. Their ages range from 18 to 25 years. The histological diagnosis was fibrocystic disease in 9 (14.5%) and malignant phyllodes in 1 (1.6%) patient. The remaining 7 (11.3%) patients had other types of benign lesions. For fibroadenoma, true positive cases were 42, false positive 7 and false negative 3, and true negative 10. Therefore, the sensitivity of clinical diagnosis of fibroadenoma was 93.3%, while specificity was 58.8%.

CONCLUSION

The sensitivity of clinical diagnosis of fibroadenoma in patients aged ≤25 years was good, though specificity is low.