Abstract:

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterized by the lack of expression of hormone receptors, as well as human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 and displays special biological and clinicopathological characteristics. This subtype is aggressive in nature with high histological grade. Besides invasive ductal carcinoma, several special histological types have also been found. The features of the TNBC subgroup roughly parallel those of the basal-like subgroup. Due to the lack of molecular targets, this subgroup has no chance of endocrine treatment and target therapy. Currently, the treatment of TNBC is dominated by chemotherapy based on anthracycline with suboptimal efficacy. Overall, the prognosis has remained quite poor. Emerging evidence indicates that patients regimens with triple negative breast cancer usually displays high rate of early recurrence and distant metastasis. Both the diseasefree survival and overall survival rates are low. Although this subtype which shows same immunohistologic pattern, great heterogeneity still exists within the group causing distinctions in morphology, prognosis, and more importantly, drastically different reactions to same treatment protocol. In recent years, TNBC has been widely concerned by both clinician and pathologist. Several targeted drugs for corresponding signal pathway as well as the subtype of triple negative breast cancer have been widely studied. This article focused on the advances in clinicopathological characteristics, new subtypes and treatment of triple negative breast cancer.

Key words: Triple negative breast tumor, Pathology, Molecular subtyping