Background: Accurate clinical diagnosis of fibroadenoma in young females is desirable because of the possibility of nonoperative treatment for those desiring it.
Objectives: To determine the accuracy of the clinical diagnosis of fibroadenoma in patients aged ≤ 25 years.
Patients and methods: A prospective study of all patients with breast disease presenting to the breast clinic was conducted from January 2004 to December 2008.
Results: During the study period, 145 patients aged ≤25 years presented with breast lumps. In this group, a clinical diagnosis of fibroadenoma was made in 100 (69.0%), fibrocystic disease in 32 (22.1%), breast cancer in 4 (0.03%) patients, the remaining were benign lesions. Excision biopsy was done for 81 (55.9%) patients. Of these 81 patients, only 62 (76.5%) returned with histology report. The histological diagnosis was fibroadenoma in 45 (72.5%) patients with a mean age of 21.4 years. Their ages range from 18 to 25 years. The histological diagnosis was fibrocystic disease in 9 (14.5%) and malignant phyllodes in 1 (1.6%) patient. The remaining 7 (11.3%) patients had other types of benign lesions. For fibroadenoma, true positive cases were 42, false positive 7 and false negative 3, and true negative 10. Therefore, the sensitivity of clinical diagnosis of fibroadenoma was 93.3%, while specificity was 58.8%.
Conclusion: The sensitivity of clinical diagnosis of fibroadenoma in patients aged ≤25 years was good, though specificity is low.