Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) accounts for about 10% of all breast cancer cases and is defined by the lack of expression of estrogen and progesterone receptors and the lack of overexpression or amplification of HER2. It differs with regard to the younger age of the patients, an increased association with a mutation of BRCA1 and a mostly low differentiation from hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. The spectrum of triple-negative breast cancer shows considerable heterogeneity both at the morphological and at the molecular level. It includes most commonly TNBC of no special type, with and without basal phenotype, triple-negative metaplastic breast carcinomas, triple-negative breast carcinomas with apocrine differentiation and rare triple-negative tumor types. At the gene-expression level, TNBC most commonly is associated with a basal phenotype, with rarer molecular variants of TNBC involving the Claudin-low, molecular apocrine types, and other rarer subtypes. Therefore, a critical use of the term TNBC, considering the histopathological tumor differentiation, is recommended.
Keyphrases
- gene expression
- positive breast cancer
- end stage renal disease
- high grade
- ejection fraction
- chronic kidney disease
- poor prognosis
- newly diagnosed
- dna methylation
- machine learning
- single molecule
- preterm infants
- stem cells
- single cell
- peritoneal dialysis
- transcription factor
- prognostic factors
- copy number
- mesenchymal stem cells
- bone marrow
- nucleic acid
- preterm birth