Cytomorphologic Patterns of Breast Lesions in Sudanese Patients: Lessons Learned from Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology

Background: Cytology for breast lesions is a safe, rapid and cost-effective with a high specificity and sensitivity.
Objective: To determine the cytomorphologic patterns of breast lesions identified among a group of Sudanesepatients. Materials and
Methods: This study included 759 patients undergoing either a fine needle aspirationFNA, nipple discharge (ND) smears or breast skin scraping (SS) at a cytology clinic in Khartoum. Clinical anddemographic data were reviewed. Stained smears were categorized into: inadequate sample, normal breast,benign lesion, suspicious, or malignant neoplasm.
Results: Of the 759 cases, 734 (96.71%) were FNA, 18 (2.37%)ND and 7 cases (0.92%) SS. For 28 cases, FNA was done under ultrasound guidance. Females were 720 (94.86%).Benign lesions were 423 (55.75%) and 248 (32.67%) were malignant and 77 (10.14%) of smears were normalwithout any detected abnormality. Ten (1.31%) cases were suspicious for malignancy, and only one case (0.13%)was reported as inadequate. Most lesions were observed among the age group 30 years and above.
Conclusions:Most patients investigated have benign lesions, one third of cytological smears were malignant. FNAC is a usefultool for investigating breast lesions in limited-resource settings.