Fine needle aspiration cytology in the management of palpable benign and malignant breast disease. Correlation with clinical and mammographic findings

Two surgeons in a health maintenance organization group practice performed 280 fine needle aspirations (FNAs) on 257 palpable breast lesions in 200 patients. The cytology was interpreted by four pathologists at a community hospital. FNA cytology had a sensitivity of 96% and a specificity of 94% in these cases; there were no false-positive diagnoses of cancer. FNA cytology improved the identification of benign disease and decreased the risk of missing cancers. FNA cytology also improved the predictive value of mammographic information and was more helpful than mammography in demonstrating the need for biopsy of small palpable lesions that turned out to be "minimal" breast cancers.