Comparison of Cytological versus Histopathological Grading of Invasive Ductal Carcinoma of the Breast with Correlation of Lymph Node Status

Background: invasive ductal carcinoma is one of the most common type oftumors in females, constituting a single large group of breast cancers. there arevarious prognostic factors, of which tumor grade, size and axillary lymph nodemetastasis are among the important ones. fine needle aspiration cytology is a commonlyused diagnostic technique in the initial evaluation of breast lumps. in the era ofneoadjuvant chemotherapy, the material obtained from fine needle aspiration cytologyis often the only baseline morphology available for future evaluation. therefore theassessment of cytological grade in fine needle aspiration cytology samples is useful.in addition, correlating cytological grade with axillary lymph node status is indicativeof tumor aggressiveness. this study correlates the cytological grade with histologicalgrade and axillary lymph node status.methods: patients with cytological diagnosis of ductal carcinoma who underwentsubsequent resection and axillary clearance over a period of five years were includedin the study. fine needle aspiration cytology smears were graded by robinson’smethod and compared with the modified bloom richardson’s histopathologicalgrading and axillary lymph node metastasis.results: there were a total of 98 cases of invasive ductal carcinoma. patients’ agesranged from 28 to 98 years with a mean of 52.17 years. in terms of cytology, there were22 (22.4%) grade i cases, 61(62.2%) grade ii, and 15 (15.3%) grade iii. forhistopathology, 22 (22.4%) were grade i, 56 (57.1%) were grade ii, and 20 (20.4%)were grade iii. in 76 (77.5%) cases the cytological grade correlated with histologicalgrade, but did not show any significant positive correlation with axillary lymph nodemetastasis.conclusion: cytological grade can be used as a predictor of histological grade, butmay not predict axillary lymph node metastasis in patients with invasive ductalcarcinomas.