Correlation between fine-needle aspiration biopsy and routine histopathology in the diagnosis of spontaneous feline mammary gland tumours

Abstract

The present study evaluated the correlation between fine-needle aspiration biopsy and routine histo-pathological examination in the diagnosis of spontaneous mammary gland tumours in cats. From the studied 120 neoplastic growths, cytological diagnosis was correct in 111 cases (92.5%), and incorrect in 9 (7.5%) patients. Out of all studied tumours, 3 false positive (2.5%) and 6 false negative (5%) results were found out. Among benign tumours, cytological diagnosis was correct in 17 cases (94.44 %). Only one false negative diagnosis was demonstrated (5.56% of all benign tumours). As to malignant tumours, cytological diagnosis was correct in 94 (92.15%), and incorrect in 8 patients (7.85%). For diagnostics of feline mammary neoplasms, the sensitivity of cytology was 95.23%, the specificity  75%, positive predictive value: 97.5% and negative predictive value: 60% compared to routine histopathology. The analysis with Cohen’s kappa test showed agreement of 99.17% (Cohen’s κ 0.96) between cytology and histopathology for benign and 94.17% (Cohen’s κ 0.75) for malignant mammary neoplasms.

Keywords

• cats
• correlation
• fine-needle aspiration biopsy
• histopathology
• mammary tumours