Fine-needle aspiration cytology in breast lumps.

The authors reviewed retrospectively 368 breast lumps subjected to fine-needle aspiration cytology alone or to open biopsy as well. Of those lumps for which the results of both studies were available, there were 39 true-positive results, 32 true-negative, 1 false-positive and 7 false-negative results when the definitive findings of fine-needle aspiration biopsy were compared with the histologic features. Also, in the 40 patients in whom the …