Most cases of breast cancer are receptive to one of two types of treatment: use of Herceptin, or hormone (endocrine-based) therapy. When, through genetic analysis, a case of breast cancer has been determined to lack the following:
- -- Estrogen receptors
- -- Progesterone receptors
- -- Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)
it is deemed to be triple negative breast cancer. Lacking these receptors, modern medical research has had to look for new pathways to fight this subtype of breast cancer, and treatment generally means a regimen of chemotherapy, with surgery and radiotherapy as adjuvant possibilities. While triple negative breast cancer is considered difficult to treat and aggressive, it does respond to chemotherapy and is therefore very treatable, especially when it is discovered in early stages.
Triple negative breast cancer survival rate
Generally speaking, triple negative breast cancer has a lower survival rate than other breast cancers, but it should be remembered that many factors play into survival rates, not simply subtype, and that the figures offered here are derived from large studies but every patient will have a different prognosis.
According to studies cited at Breastcancer.org, women with triple negative breast cancer (of all stages) have a five year survival rate of 77 percent, compared to women with other subtypes of breast cancer, who have a five year survival rate of 93 percent. Furthermore, having triple negative breast cancer does appear to raise the risk of death within five years of diagnosis compared to women with other subtypes of breast cancer, but after that five year time period, the risk diminishes.
However, we must mitigate these seemingly optimistic figures by noting that the mortality rate among African American women with triple negative breast cancer is much higher than it is in white women, and that it is uncommon for this cancer to be discovered in its earliest and most treatable stages.
Sources
BreastCancer.org, How Triple Negative Breast Cancer Behaves and Looks
Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Triple Negative Breast Cancer
