Triple negative breast cancer

Dr Chee Khoon Lee from the Institute of Medical Oncology at Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital, presented his research analysing clinico-pathological correlates in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). The results showed a significant worsening of outlook compared to hormone receptor positive disease.

Triple negative disease was more likely to be high grade (87% vs. 29.1%) and more likely to show lymphovascular invasion (LVI) 38.4% v 27.9%. As regards recurrence, TNBC was more likely to present with distant metastases (13% vs. 8.7%). More bad news was that time to distant recurrence was much shorter also (16 months vs. 35 months).

Metastases in TNBC were more likely to be visceral (8.9% vs. 5%) and present in multiple sites. Overall survival was likewise much worse.

On the good news front, a higher pathological complete response rate was seen with anthracycline based neo-adjuvant chemotherapy.