Background: Breast lump is fairly common complaint in females for which patient seeks medical advice and becomes anxious about the diagnosis. Quick diagnosis by Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) relieves patient’s anxiety and assists in their preoperative management and overall treatment. Aims: To study the cytomorphological spectrum of benign breast lesions in correlation with histological appearances to evaluate the utility of FNAC in the diagnosis of palpable breast lesions. Materials and Methods: A 1.5 years prospective analysis of the data was carried out on 200 patients of breast lump in the Department of Pathology, Mandya Institute of Medical Sciences, Mandya from January 2016 to June 2017. Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) was done and smears were stained with Hematoxyllin and Eosin and May-GrunwaldGiemsa stains. Results: Out of 200 cases 160 cases were benign,38 cases were malignant and 2 cases were inadequate. Among 160 cases maximum cases were of fibroadenoma (62 cases) followed by fibrocystic change (44 cases), gynaecomastia (17 cases), benign epithelial hyperplasia (14 cases), acute mastitis (6 cases), chronic mastitis (4 cases), epidermal cyst (3 cases), subareolar abscess, galactocele and granulomatous mastitis each 2 cases and 1 each case of breast cyst, lipoma, benign spindle cell lesion, benign phyllodes tumor. Histopathological correlation was available in 58 cases and maximum cases were obtained for fibroadenoma followed by fibrocystic change. Conclusion: FNAC of the breast lump is an easily performed outpatient diagnostic method for determining the nature of the breast mass. It is safe, painless, needs no anesthesia. The lumps can be aspirated in the outpatient department, with requiring only a few materials such as syringe, needle and glass slides and fixatives. It can be repeated if necessary.

Keywords: FNAC; breast lesions; HPE.