What does it mean to have a triple negative diagnoses of breast cancer? It means that your pathology states that the tumor is estrogen receptor-negative, progesterone receptor-negative and HER2-negative.

I have met many women along my breast cancer journey that are scared because they were diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. Even though the overexpression of HER2 can be a more aggressive breast cancer, the discovery of Herceptin has given these women a targeted therapy for their specific tumor type. Women that have estrogen or progesterone positive breast cancer can take targeted therapies such as Tamoxifen and Aromatase Inhibitors to help prevent a recurrence. After chemotherapy, the triple negative women often feels that they have nothing and chemotherapy is the only course of treatment available to them.

Chemotherapy is the mainstay of therapy for these women, and the need for new effective agents in this setting is crucial. There is interest in EGFR inhibitors for triple negative patients. There is an ongoing trial that is investigating the potential efficacy of cetuximab with or without the chemotherapy drug carboplatin in patients with triple negative metastatic breast cancer. This study is the first one specifically designed to target a breast cancer subtype identified by gene expression analysis, with the hope of identifying a class of agents that could offer triple negative patients a survival benefit that is comparable to that achieved with the use of Herceptin.

According to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, triple negative breast cancer patients are more likely to develop distant metastasis. Researchers conducted a study among 482 women with early stage breast cancer. Out of the 482 women, 177 had triple negative disease. All women were treated with lumpectomy and radiation therapy. Some women also received chemotherapy. After five years 67 percent of women with triple negative breast cancer were free of distant metastasis, compared to 82 percent of the other women. Risk of local recurrence was equal in the two groups.

Additional research is needed to identify the optimal treatment strategy for these women.