Fine needle biopsy cytology of breast lesions: a review of interpretative difficulties.

Screening mammography and greater community awareness of breast carcinoma have led to an increase in fine needle biopsies of the breast. As a consequence, a wide variety of cytologic patterns have been encountered and studied in benign, proliferative, and malignant breast lesions. We review the main reasons for diagnostic difficulties in breast cytology, the situations in which either a false positive or a false negative diagnosis is possible, as well as conditions whose incorrect typing can lead to inappropriate management.

Pitfalls in fine needle aspiration cytology.

A review of pitfalls encountered in fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) of all organs and tissues and based mainly on the author's 35-year experience of diagnostic FNAC in clinical practice is presented. Diagnostic difficulties are usually related to deviations from common cytological criteria that may occur in some lesions. Others are due to the effects of the sampling procedure or of the preparation of samples.

Fine-needle aspiration cytological findings in five cases of epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma of salivary glands.

The cytologic features of five cases of epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma arising in major salivary glands (four parotid and one submandibular gland) are presented. All cases were initially diagnosed as low-grade malignancies. The smears were generally cellular, with no specific architectural pattern.