Objectives

Breast carcinoma is the second most common malignancy in women. It is a malignant with heterogeneous prognosis. Because of the enhanced effects of new chemotherapeutic agents on the survival of patients with breast cancer, there has been an increased interest in the use of prognostic factors like Lymph node status, tumor size, nuclear grade, steroid receptor content, tumor type and cellular proliferation rate. The cytological grading system introduce by Robinson et al. corresponds to the histologic grading method of Elston’s modification of Scarff Bloon Richardson. The present study was undertaken to correlate the cyto–histological grading of invasive breast carcinomas and to assess the importance of grading.

Methods

The present study was conducted on a sample size of 62 patients for over a span of 26 months. 62 Patients who underwent FNAC and mastectomy for breast carcinoma were cytologically and Histologically Graded. The results obtained by both grading methods were then compared.

Results

 In the present study, the age of the subjects ranged fromless than 40 to above 60 years. All were female. On comparison of the cytological and histological grades, 93% cases were grade III, 91% cases were grade II, 55% were grade I both on cytology and histology. Cytological grading of tumor show strong agreement with histologic grading of tumors.(weighted kappa – 0.821)

Conclusion

The present study proves that, a simple cytological grading helps in evaluating the prognosis of the patient and provides varied treatment options depending on the grade.