Clinicopathological Characteristics And Prognosis Factors Of The Triple-negative Breast Cancer

Objective:To analyze the clinicopathological features, prognostic factors of the patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), and find out effected treatment options.Methods: We studied a cohort of 111 patients with TNBC, registered between January 2004 and August 2008 at cancer hospital of Guangxi medical university. Clinicopathological characteristics, prognostic factors and overall survival were analyzed.Results:TNBC comprise approximately 9.6% of breast cancer cases registered in cancer hospital of Guangxi medical university. The mean age was 46.9 years old. Most of the patients with TNBC were premenopausal at diagnosis (56.8%). There were only two patients with family history of breast cancer. TNBC mostly were infitrating ductal carcinoma (79.3%) with large tumor size (T)(T2: 64.0%, T3: 21.6%), and most were stage II(59.5%)or stage III(29.7%). The rate of lymph node metastasis was 60.4%, and there was a increase in node positivity as tumor side increased(P<0.05).During the follow-up time, 40 patients presented metastases or recurrence, and the rate of visceral metastases (18.9%) was apparently higher than bone metastases (3.6%). The median survival time was 83 months, 5-year disease free survival (DFS) was 61% and 5 year overall survival (OS) was 62%. Univariate analysis suggested that tumor size, lymph node status and TNM stage were prognostic factors of TNBC. Cox multivariate analysis demonstrated tumor size and lymph node were independent prognostic factor.Conclusion:TNBC was a subtype of primary breast cancer with these characteristics: low incidence rates, young patients, large tumor size, advanced TNM stage. The majority of these tumors were infitrating ductal carcinomas. TNBC had an increased likelihood of local and distant recurrence, and especially was associated with increased risk of visceral metastases. The prognosis of TNBC was poor .The factors which were associated with poor prognosis included tumor size, lymph node status, TNM stage. Tumor size and lymph node status were independent prognostic factors.