Comparative Study of Silver Stained Nucleolar Organizer Regions (Agnors) between Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) and Histology of Palpable Breast Lumps

Different modalities are used for the diagnosis of breast lesions. Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is now the most popular, single modality for diagnosing different breast diseases. One hundred patients with breast lesions underwent fine needle aspiration and later surgery and divided into 05 groups. The results were correlated. In this study silver stained nucleolar organizer regions (AgNORs) enumeration technique was applied to FNAC smears and paraffin sections of biopsies or mastectomy specimens of the same patient to judge usefulness in breast diseases. The "AgNOR" dots were counted in each case and analyzed statistically. The difference of the mean "AgNOR" numbers per cell noted on FNAC smears and histological sections between benign neoplastic diseases of breast and malignant neoplastic diseases of breast was very highly significant ('P' value < 0.0001) with no overlap between the ranges of mean "AgNOR" counts in these groups. The technique was not fully able to differentiate between different benign diseases of breast on FNAC and histological sections with overlap between the mean "AgNOR" counts in these groups. It is concluded from this study that colloidal silver staining technique for "AgNORs" has a valuable histological and cytological diagnostic significance in breast tumours. It is suggested that the technique should be employed as a special stain on FNAC smears and paraffin sections of breast lesions.