Breast cytology. Statistical analysis and cytohistologic correlations.

Objective: To analyze the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values and the efficacy of fine needle aspiration (FNA) in our material, to investigate the influence of the histologic type and stage of carcinoma on the quality of the aspirates and on the detection rates of mammary carcinoma, and to investigate the rate of inadequate samples and the accuracy of cytologic diagnoses, with an emphasis on the rate of false positive diagnoses in benign mammary lesions.

Study Design: The results of 1,472 FNAs of the breast obtained over three years were subjected to a retrospective analysis.

Results: The cytologic diagnoses were benign in 1,003 cases (68.