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Breast Cancer
Published in: Breast Cancer 4/2016

01-07-2016 | Original Article

Diagnostic value of fine needle aspiration and core needle biopsy in special types of breast cancer

Authors: Ryuji Ohashi, Miyuki Matsubara, Yasuhiko Watarai, Keiko Yanagihara, Koji Yamashita, Shin-ichi Tsuchiya, Hiroyuki Takei, Zenya Naito

Published in: Breast Cancer | Issue 4/2016

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Abstract

Background

Although fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy is an established tool to assess breast lesions, there has been a trend toward using core needle biopsy (CNB) instead. The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of FNA and CNB in special types of breast cancer.

Methods

A retrospective review of diagnostic results of pre-operatively performed FNA or CNB, or a combination of the two, was conducted. The cases include histologically proven invasive ductal carcinoma of no special type (NST n = 159), invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC n = 65), mucinous carcinoma (MUC n = 51), and apocrine carcinoma (APO n = 25).

Results

The absolute diagnostic sensitivity of FNA to detect malignancy in ILC and APO patients was inferior to that of NST patients (p < 0.001 for ILC and APO). Within each cancer type, the sensitivity of CNB was higher than that of FNA in the ILC and APO patients (p < 0.001 and p < 0.05, respectively). As for NST and MUC patients, FNA and CNB had equivalent sensitivity. The sensitivity of FNA alone significantly improved when combined with CNB in NST, ILC and APO patients (p < 0.05, p < 0.001, and p < 0.05, respectively).

Conclusions

Our results suggest that FNA has less diagnostic accuracy than CNB for ILC and APO; thus, the use of CNB should be encouraged when these types of cancer are clinically suspected or when the initial FNA is inconclusive.
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Metadata
Title
Diagnostic value of fine needle aspiration and core needle biopsy in special types of breast cancer
Authors
Ryuji Ohashi
Miyuki Matsubara
Yasuhiko Watarai
Keiko Yanagihara
Koji Yamashita
Shin-ichi Tsuchiya
Hiroyuki Takei
Zenya Naito
Publication date
01-07-2016
Publisher
Springer Japan
Published in
Breast Cancer / Issue 4/2016
Print ISSN: 1340-6868
Electronic ISSN: 1880-4233
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12282-015-0624-9

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