Triple Negative Breast Cancer

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Vaguely, it is estimated that approximately 15% to 20% of women suffering from breast cancer are actually affected by Triple Negative Breast cancer. This is a very aggressive kind of breast cancer which metastasize in the body a lot faster.

What is Triple negative breast cancer? Your body consists of 3 types of “receptors” namely oestrogen, progesterone and Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 i.e. HER2. These receptors are actually proteins which are present in the cancer cells.

When the receptors attach to the oestrogen (progesterone or HER2 produced within your body), they could react with the cancer cells and trigger their growth. In most cases of breast cancer a women has at least one of these receptors. However, in the case of Triple Negative Breast cancer a women has none of the receptors.

Usually samples of the cancerous cells are removed during a surgery or a biopsy. These samples are then examined to note the receptors. Basal type breast cancer is a Triple negative breast cancer. It is found that most women with Triple negative breast cancer have a mutation of the BRCA1 gene.

Studies conducted show that women of African origin or Hispanic American women are more likely to be the victims of Triple negative breast cancer than American women.

Triple negative breast cancer being a very aggressive form of breast cancer has a very bad prognosis with high rate of recurrences and low survival rate. In fact a person affected by such breast cancer can barely be expected to survive the next year.

For treating other cancers the treatments that focus on the receptors like hormone therapy or herceptin would be enough. But, such treatment is not beneficial in cases of triple negative breast cancer. However, Chemotherapy is one type of treatment that is most favored in such cases.

Chemotherapy is often prescribed after a surgery is done to extract the cancerous cells. Chemotherapy drugs then focus on seeing that the cancer cells do not grow or recur. Usually, a combination of drugs like doxorubicin, epirubicin etc (also called as anthracycline) are used for chemotherapy.

As yet there is no particular combination of drugs that could be used for treating triple negative breast. This is probably because such type of cancer has just come to the fore.

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