Objective: To analyze the clinicopathologic features and prognosis of triple negative breast cancer.
Methods: The clinical datas of 477 patients of primary breast cancer which were diagnosed by pathology in the 4th Hospital of Hebei Medical University from Jan. 2004 to Dec. 2004 were analyzed. All of the patients were divided into two groups according to the results of immunohistochemistry: one was triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) which included estrogen receptor (ER) negative, progesterone receptor (PR) negative and human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER2) negative and other was non-triple negative breast cancer. We compared TNBC with the group of non-triple negative breast cancer in the clinicopathologic features. The disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were analyzed by Kaplan-Meier method.
Results: Of the 477 patients, 12.6% (60/477) was TNBC patients in which 76.7% of age was younger than fifty years(46/60), 28.3% of T > 5 cm (17/60), 68.3% of lymph nodes metastasis (41/60), 31.7% of grade III (19/60) and 13.3% of family history of breast cancer (8/60), (P < 0. 05). Till June 2008, the median time of follow-up was 48 months (42-54 months). Local recurrence or distant metastasis were 26.7% (16/60) of TNBC which was higher than 15.3% (64/417) of non-triple negative cases; DFS was 68.3% in TNBC group and 79.6% in the non-triple negative breast cancer group. The OS was 81.7% in TNBC group and 90.9% in the non-triple negative breast cancer group (Log-Rank = 3.917, P = 0.048; Log-Rank = 4.838, P = 0.028).
Conclusion: These patients of triple negative breast carcinoma were usually young (age < 50), with tumor growth fast, much more invasion and poorly prognosis.