14 DAY TRIAL // A peer-reviewed study of the American Cancer Society revealed the deadly triad for female breast cancer: African American or Hispanic, younger than 40 years, and lower socioeconomic status (SES).
This triad of the breast cancers and tumors does not respond to any of three significant tumor markers, are aggressive, deadly cancers that affect young, poor minority women.
The triple negative tumors were also linked to later diagnosis and shorter survival. Tumor and tissue markers offer crucial information about the disease type, essential for prognosis and to selecting the appropriate adjuvant therapy.
In the case of breast cancer, the most important markers are estrogen receptor (ER), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), and progesterone receptor (PR). Roughly 15 % of breast cancers do not signal to any of these markers and are generally assessed as basal-like subtypes.
These determines poor prognosis and survival, therapy failure, and are often detected in African American women, but very little is understood about other factors linked to this condition.
A team led by Katrina Bauer from the Public Health Institute in Sacramento, California made a comparison of the demographic, clinical and survival patterns of 6,370 women diagnosed with triple negative breast cancers with 44,704 women with other breast cancer types. They detected race and age, in particular, but also socioeconomic factors as the most risky for the triple negative breast cancer.
Compared to Caucasians, African American women presented the highest risk followed by Hispanic women. Also women under 40 years old were more prone than women over 60 years old. Lower SES was also found to be an aggravating factor.
The triple negative tumors were found to be more aggressive, diagnosed much later (in advanced stages) and linked to shorter survival, regardless of when they were found.
Only 14 % of the African American women were found to survive the next five years after diagnosis.
Bauer's team concluded that "age less than 40 years, being non-Hispanic black and, to a lesser extent, being Hispanic, are clearly the most powerful risk factors for this poor prognosis subtype of breast cancer."