Breast lesions are one of the most commonly encountered lesions in women. All physicians accept the necessity of obtaining prompt pathological confirmation of nature of mass in the breast suspected as benign or malignant. In recent years, mammary cytology has been considered as an effective means of early diagnosis of breast masses. 476 aspirates from breast lesions were studied and categorized as inflammatory (9 case), benign (418 cases) and malignant (49 cases). Youngest case was of 14 years old with juvenile fibroadenoma and oldest was 80 years with malignant lesion. Among the 476 cases, 38 were male patient. Benign lesions were most common in the age group of 21 ýÿ 30 years, while malignant lesions were most common in the fifth and sixth decades of life. Fibroadenoma was the commonest benign lesion followed by fibrocystic disease. Among the malignant lesions, invasive carcinoma was found to be more common. Of these, cyto-histopathological correlation was done in 111 cases. Cytology had the diagnostic accuracy with sensitivity of 94%, specificity of 99% and accuracy rate of 97%.

Keywords: Breast; Benign; Malignant; Cytology; Histopathology.