Needle puncture followed by pneumocystography of palpable breast cysts. A controlled clinical trial.

In a prospective analysis of 123 consecutive patients the current clinical and mammographic criteria of a cyst of the breast proved well-suited as a basis of selection for pneumocystography. Only about 12 per cent of the punctured lumps were solid, 9.8 per cent of them benign and 2.4 per cent malignant. The therapeutic effect was satisfactory, 94 per cent of the cysts not showing any recurrence after pneumocystography during a 6-month follow-up period with repeated palpation and mammography one and 6 months after the aspiration. The 6 per cent recurrences appeared within one month. The appearance of the aerogram was reliable in differentiating between a simple cyst and an intracystic lesion, whereas neither the tendency to recurrence nor the cytologic examination afforded a reliable basis of evaluation.