Prognostic Utility of Grading in Cytological Smears of Breast Carcinoma

Introduction: Invasive breast cancer is the most common carcinoma in women, accounting for 23% of all cancers in women globally and it is the leading cause of death due to cancer in urban women. Grading of breast carcinoma on fine needle aspiration smears, while the tumour is still in vivo would be most ideal and desirable, as it would help in selection of appropriate therapy for patients. Present study is taken up to grade the breast malignancy aspirate cytology according to Robinson's grading system, grade the breast carcinoma biopsies according to Nottingham histological Score and to observe the relation between the two. Aim and objective: To grade the breast carcinoma aspirate cytology according to Robinson's grading system and to correlate the cytological grading with Nottingham histological grade. Materials and methods: All the diagnosed cases of carcinoma breast from January 2014 to December 2015 whose FNAC and biopsy were performed at our institute were studied. Cytological grading was carried out according to Robinson's grading system and was compared with Nottingham histological grading system. Concordance and discordance was accordingly noted. Results: A total of 30 cases were studied, age ranged from 32-80 years. By Robinson's grading system 50%, 36.67% & 13.33% aspirate were graded as I, II and III respectively. Cytological grading was correlated well with histopathological grading with diagnostic accuracy of 80%. Sensitivity and specificity of Robinson's cytological grading was 81.25% and 100% respectively. Conclusion: Comprehensive cytological grading of breast carcinoma was possible using Robinson's cytological grading system with a good correlation with the histological grading. Cytological grading must be routinely followed as a part of all FNAC reports