Breast cancer in men: Evidence suggests preoperative work up is suboptimal

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7420.930-c

BMJ 2003;327:930 (18 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7420.930-c

Letter

Breast cancer in men

Evidence suggests preoperative work up is suboptimal

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Perkins and Middleton point out that treatmentof breast cancer in men may be suboptimal.¹ The diagnostic workup is also a problem and not mentioned by the authors. Jobseand I recently evaluated our experience with fine needle aspirationcytology and core needle biopsy procedures in male breast lesions.^2
3

Fine needle aspiration cytology had a sensitivity of 87%, aspecificity of 78%, and a positive predictive value of malignancyof 100%.² In this study a preoperative diagnosis by either aspirationcytology or core needle biopsy was not available in nine outof 28 breast carcinomas, a situation that would generally beregarded as unacceptable in women.

I reported preliminary results for core needle biopsy, but therewere no false positive or false negative diagnoses, suggestingthat it is a reliable preoperative procedure.³ In this studysix out of 19 men did not receive a preoperative diagnosis.In . . . [Full text of this article]

Pieter J Westenend, pathologist

Pathologisch Laboratorium voor Dordrecht eo, Laan van Londen 1800, 3317 DA Dordrecht, Netherlands pwestenend@paldordt.com