Abstract
During the past two years, breast secretion smears were obtained from 120 patients examined for nipple discharge by the concentration method at Tokyo Metropolitan Cancer Detection Center. Procedure of this method was as follows Nipple secretion collected by a series of three or five days was stored in a glass tube containing YM solution. The solution was then centrifuged at 1, 500rpm for five minutes, and the sediment was smeared on the clean glass slides thinly coated with 0.1% poly-L-lysine. After air drying, smears were re-fixed in 95% ethyl alcohol and stained by the modified Papanicolaou's method.
Of 13 histologically confirmed mammary carcinomas, 8 (61.5%) were correctly diagnosed as cancer, 1 (7.7%) was diagnosed as suspicious and 4 (30.8%) were false negative by this method. Whereas the cytologic diagnosis of the conventional method by which secretion was smeared directly were positive in 3 (23.1%), suspected in 3 (23.1%) and negative in 7 (53.8%). In five cancer cases without any palpable mass (TO), all were positive in the smears made by the concentration method, while only 3 were successfully diagnosed by the direct method.
These results clearly show that this procedure is a simple and reliable method for cytology of nipple discharge and is useful not only in hospital but also in mass survey examination.
