Evaluation of Breast Lumps by Ultrasound and Its Correlation with FNAC Findings in a Teaching Hospital in Telangana

BACKGROUND Ultrasonography (US) has become popular in the present day practice in the evaluation of breast lesions. The USG findings can be supplemented by fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) and correlation between the two diagnostic modalities can help improve the diagnosis. We wanted to study the ultrasonographic features of breast lumps and to correlate the findings with fine needle aspiration cytology. METHODS This was a prospective study done on 55 patients of breast lumps who attended the ultrasound at department of Radiology, Maheshwara Medical College, Patancheru, Hyderabad, Telangana over a period of eight months. RESULTS Majority of the cases were reported as Benign i.e., 81.8 % (45 / 55), 12.7 % (07 / 55) constituted Malignant cases. Suspicious of malignancy in 5.4 % (03 / 55) cases. Most of the benign lesions were noted in the 20 - 50 years age group while malignant lesions were observed between 41 years to more than 60 years of age. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV of ultrasonography and FNAC in diagnosing breast lesions were 87.5 %, 93.6 %, 70 %, and 97.7 % respectively. CONCLUSIONS Ultrasonography is a primary imaging technique for evaluation of breast lumps and has good sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV for diagnosing breast lesions. It is complementary to FNAC and when both modalities are used together they can diagnose majority of the lesions. This can reduce the radiation exposure and the more invasive and expensive breast biopsy procedure. KEYWORDS USG, Breast Lesions, FNAC, BIRADS