The results from this series of patients confirm that FNA biopsy of palpable breast lesions is an accurate and sensitive method of diagnosing breast carcinoma. The results presented here were comparable to the above series. There were few unsatisfactory specimens in this series. This low rate in this series is, in part, because of the aspirator who performed a great number of the aspirations would perform an initial immediate quick staining to assess specimen adequacy and reaspirate if the specimens were unsatisfactory on the first attempt. These were specimens that had some characteristics of malignancy but did not fulfil the criteria of being malignant as previously mentioned.
Surgical excision is advised when a papillary lesion is encountered.
At times this group of neoplasia can be confused with fibroadenoma or fibrocystic change as it was seen in six patients in this series. In general, the suspicious category contained some of both malignant and benign lesions according to final histopathology. Instead of false-positive they are actually false suspicious. The large number of false positive or false-suspicious readings adversely affect the overall specificity and accuracy of the series. To accurately examine the ability of FNA to diagnose breast carcinoma, the results were generated into different fashions to account for the suspicious category.