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Triple-negative breast cancer has worse overall survival and cause-specific survival than non-triple-negative breast cancer

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Abstract

Purpose

The current American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging manual uses tumor size, lymph node, and metastatic status to stage breast cancer across different subtypes. We examined the prognosis of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) versus non-TNBC within the same stages and sub-stages to evaluate whether TNBC had worse prognosis than non-TNBC.

Methods

We reviewed the National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data and identified 158,358 patients diagnosed with breast cancer from 2010 to 2012. The overall survival (OS) time and breast cancer cause-specific survival time were compared between patients with TNBC and non-TNBC in each stage and sub-stages. The results were validated using a dataset of 2049 patients with longer follow-up from our institution.

Results

Compared with patients with non-TNBC, patients with TNBC had worse OS and breast cancer cause-specific survival time in every stage and sub-stage in univariate and multivariate analyses adjusting for age, race, tumor grade, and surgery and radiation treatments in the SEER data. The worse OS time in patients with TNBC was validated in our institutional dataset.

Conclusions

Patients with TNBC have worse survival than patients with non-TNBC. The new AJCC staging manual should consider breast cancer biomarker information.

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Authors Contributions

Conception and design: XL, LP, LH, JLM. Analysis and interpretation of data: All authors. Manuscript drafting and reviewing: All authors. XL is responsible for the overall content.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Glenn Family Breast Center, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University, 1364 Clifton Road, Suite H175, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA

    Xiaoxian Li

  2. Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Jing Yang, Limin Peng & Kevin C. Ward

  3. Department of Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Aysegul A. Sahin & Lei Huo

  4. Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Ruth O’Regan

  5. Department of Radiation Oncology, Glenn Family Breast Center, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Mylin A. Torres

  6. Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Glenn Family Breast Center, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Jane L. Meisel

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  1. Xiaoxian Li
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  2. Jing Yang
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  3. Limin Peng
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  4. Aysegul A. Sahin
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  5. Lei Huo
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  9. Jane L. Meisel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiaoxian Li.

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All authors declare no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Supplementary Figure

Kaplan-Meier survival curves of all four subtype breast cancers in different stages from the National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Result (SEER) data. Triple negative breast cancer had worse overall survival times than other subtypes in all sub-stages except for in stage IA and IB when compared with the hormonal receptor posive/HER2- breast cancer. Hazard ratio and P values are summerized in table 5 (PDF 20 kb)

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(DOCX 18 kb)

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Li, X., Yang, J., Peng, L. et al. Triple-negative breast cancer has worse overall survival and cause-specific survival than non-triple-negative breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res Treat 161, 279–287 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-016-4059-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-016-4059-6

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