Clinicopathological features of the triple-negative tumors in Chinese breast cancer patients

Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2009 May;115(2):325-33. doi: 10.1007/s10549-008-0096-0. Epub 2008 Jun 18.

Abstract

In order to analyze the clinicopathological features of Chinese triple negative tumors, we performed a retrospective study of 1993 female unilateral breast cancer patients undergoing surgery in Cancer Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Survival curves were performed with Kaplan-Meier method and annual recurrence hazard was estimated by hazard function. We observed that the rate of larger tumors in triple negative patients was higher than that in HR+/ERBB2- women, but lower than that in ERBB2+ subgroup (P = 0.0001). In addition, 21.83% of triple negative patients had four or more axillary lymph nodes involved as compared to 27.40% of ERBB2+ women and 22.75% of HR+/ERBB2- subgroup (P = 0.0056). In the survival analysis, we found a statistical significance for recurrence-free survival (RFS) among the three subgroups (P = 0.0037), with the rate of 72.89% for ERBB2+ patients, 78.40% for HR+/ERBB2- ones and 75.76% for triple negative ones at the 11th year respectively. When it came to hazard peaks, discrepancies existed in different subgroups. Similar to HR+/ERBB2- patients, triple negative subgroup showed an early major recurrence surge peaking at approximately year 2.5 as opposed to ERBB2+ counterparts with a tapering sharp at the 1st year. Furthermore, the first peak of triple negative tumors was higher than that of HR+/ERBB2- patients, but lower than that of ERBB2+ ones. Therefore, our findings suggested biological characteristics and prognostic outlook of Chinese triple negative breast cancers might be more favorable and somewhat different from those in Western populations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Asian People / genetics
  • Breast Neoplasms / metabolism
  • Breast Neoplasms / mortality*
  • Breast Neoplasms / pathology*
  • Disease-Free Survival
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Immunohistochemistry
  • Kaplan-Meier Estimate
  • Middle Aged
  • Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / epidemiology*
  • Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / metabolism
  • Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / pathology
  • Receptor, ErbB-2 / metabolism
  • Receptors, Estrogen / metabolism
  • Receptors, Progesterone / metabolism
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / metabolism
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • Receptors, Estrogen
  • Receptors, Progesterone
  • TP53 protein, human
  • Tumor Suppressor Protein p53
  • ERBB2 protein, human
  • Receptor, ErbB-2