Comparative Diagnostic Accuracy of Mammography and Histopathology in the Detection of Suspected Breast Lesions

Breast cancer (BC) is considered to be one of the most common cancers worldwide. Regular screening has been shown to reduce BC mortality by approximately 20–40%. This study aims to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of mammography in detecting breast lesions with histopathology as the gold standard, for evaluating the value of mammography in distinguishing between benign and malignant breast lesions. The study included 116 female patients with clinically suspected breast lesions. All patients underwent mammography as part of their diagnostic evaluation, and a biopsy was performed in each case to obtain histopathological confirmation. Among the 116 cases, breast imaging reporting and data system classification were significantly associated with the histopathological results. The sensitivity of mammography was 100%, and the specificity was 69.6%. No false negative results occurred, but there was a false positive rate of 30.4%, meaning that the condition was overestimated. Overall diagnostic accuracy was 85.3%, and the area under the curve was 0.919, indicating excellent discrimination between malignant and benign lesions. This study shows that mammography is a highly sensitive, accurate, and non-invasive diagnostic technique for detection of breast lesions. Although false-positive results lead to some overestimation of disease, there is a high correlation with histopathology, which makes it highly effective in differentiating benign from malignant lesions, and these findings support its role in the diagnostic evaluation of suspicious breast lesions.