Diagnostic accuracy of core needle biopsy of breast lesions

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women both in the developed and developing world. In India, the age adjusted incidence of breast cancer in urban areas ranges between 20-30 per 1,00,000 population. Core needle biopsy (CNB) has been the first approach in cases of large lesions clearly malignant at mammogram. Therefore, CNB enables more definitive diagnosis than FNAC to differentiate benign and malignant tumors. A sample size of 60 cases are included in this study. The specimens sent to the department of pathology will be processed by routine histopathological techniques. Data is entered in SPSS and analyzed. Chi-square test is used to find sensitivity, specificity, NPV and PPV of core needle biopsy. Among benign lesions, mastitis comprising of 5 cases (11.5%). Among malignant cases IDC –NST was most common type comprising of 27 cases, 8 cases were inconclusive. Out of 60 cases 50 cases underwent mastectomy/lumpectomy, 7 were benign and 43 were malignant. All 50 cases were correlating with core needle biopsy diagnosis. 8 cases which were inconclusive in CNB underwent mastectomy/lumpectomy as BIRADS/FNAC were showing carcinoma features. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) are 86.6%, 100%, 86.6% and 100% respectively.