21177 Background: Breast cancer is the commonest malignancy in premenopausal Nigerian women in whom it is almost uniformly fatal probably due to lack of access to early diagnosis and treatment. To enhance the value of fine needle aspiration cytology, a rapid and comparatively new technique in our center, we sought to verify if it is also a cost-effective test to predict biological behavior in breast carcinoma. We developed a modified grading system to compare the cytologic features of the cases in our series with known prognostic factors (tumours size, histologic grade and axillary lymph node status) in subsequently excised tissues. Methods: Fine needle aspirates obtained in 42 patients diagnosed as ductal cell carcinoma not otherwise specified (NOS) at the UDUTH Hospital, Sokoto, Nigeria were investigated. The three cytologic features used were nuclear grade (score 1–3), cellular dyscohesion (score 1–3), and bare atypical nuclei (score 0, 1). A cytological score of 3 and below was considered a low score, and a score of 4–7 was considered a high score. We also categorized each patient according to the Nottingham Prognostic Index (NPI) into: good prognostic group (GPG), moderate prognostic group (MPG) and poor prognostic group (PPG). The cases in GPG and MPG were considered to belong to a more favourable category. Results of cytoprognostic scores were compared with the respective pathological information calculated by the NPI. Results: Eighteen of the 20 cases that had a cytologically high score were confirmed to be PPG while 2 correlated with MPG. Among the 22 cases that had cytologically low scores 14 cases were not correlated with favourable NPI index (belonged to PPG category) while the remaining 8 correlated well (MPG = 4 and GPG = 4). The overall accuracy for cytologic grading was 62% (26 out of 42 cases). Conclusion: Tumour typing on FNA material correlates with the NPI in the poor prognostic group. However, this modified cytoprognostic score seems to have doubtful promise as a prognostic factor in our group of patients with favourable NPI. The importance of each cytological feature used in this grading system will be determined by regression analysis in a larger sample size. No significant financial relationships to disclose.
Screening and characterization of novel specific peptides targeting MDA-MB-231 claudin-low breast carcinoma by computer-aided phage display methodologies