Diagnostic efficacy of the clinical-radiological-cytological triad in solid breast lumps: results of a second prospective study on 631 patients.

The clinical-radiological-cytological triad was used for diagnostic evaluation in 631 women over 30 years old with a solid breast lump, excluding clinically obvious cancers. All the lumps were subsequently removed surgically, except for 105 cases which spontaneously regressed within 2 months. 285 of the 526 nodules removed were cancers, and 162 of 285 (57%) did not exceed 20 mm in size. The sensitivity of the individual tests (physical examination, mammography and fine-needle aspiration cytology) of the malignant lumps was respectively 0.83, 0.73 and 0.60, and it increased to 0.95 when they were associated. Of the remaining 346 benign lumps the specificity of the three tests was respectively 0.60, 0.78 and 0.98. The predictive value of a positive response (certain or probable) to the three tests was 0.63, 0.74 and 0.94. The certain positive responses of cytology (131 of 285 cases) reached a predictive value of 1.00. The predictive value of a negative response for the three tests was respectively 0.81, 0.80 and 0.82; in the absence of positive responses, the predictive value for benignancy of the triad was 0.93 (177 of 190 cases). The systematic use of the diagnostic triad and the organizational platform allowed the clinicians to select malignant cases and plan inpatient/outpatient surgical treatment.