Papular skin lesions: Clue to a recurrence of breast cancer on fine needle non-aspiration cytology (FNNAC)
Author(s) -
Ruquiya Afrose,
Mohammad Akram,
Shahid Ali Siddiqui
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of cytology/journal of cytology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.267
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 0974-5165
pISSN - 0970-9371
DOI - 10.4103/0970-9371.155245
Subject(s) - medicine , fine needle aspiration cytology , suction , cytology , radiology , breast carcinoma , fine needle aspiration , metastasis , cancer , breast cancer , pathology , biopsy , mechanical engineering , engineering
Cutaneous metastasis from underlying carcinoma is relatively uncommon in clinical practice. A high index of suspicion is required to diagnose these lesions, as these lesions can mimic benign skin lesions and clinical findings may be subtle. Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is commonly employed for diagnosing these skin lesions. However, it is often difficult to aspirate adequate material from small papular lesions. In these clinical situations, fine needle non-aspiration cytology (FNNAC) is proposed as an alternative procedure. FNNAC eliminates the negative suction pressure employed in FNAC and decreases the dilution of tumor cells by blood and hence yields adequate diagnostic material. We report here a case in which FNNAC was used in place of FNAC in diagnosing papular skin lesions. This procedure was carried out in a treated patient of carcinoma breast who was on regular follow-up and presented to us with a 20-day history of papular skin lesions over the chest and back. This article enlightens the clinicians about the utility of FNNAC, which is a relatively uncommon procedure.