Investigation of the time and the site of metastases in patients with triple negative breast cancerand other phenotypes

triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) refers to any breast cancer that does not express the genes for estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and Her2/neu. The purpose of this study was to compare disease-free survival, prognostic factors and site of metastases in patients with triple negativebreast cancer and other phenotypes. Materials and methods: All the patients who were referred to the Breast Cancer Research Center between 1376 and 1392, were involved in this cross-sectional study. The patients who were negative for estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and Her2neu were categorized in TNBC group and the patients with at least one positive receptor were categorized in other phenotypes group. Disease-free survival, prognostic factors and incidence of metastases (bone or non-bone) were compared in women with TNBC and other phenotypes. Data were analyzed by SPSS 21 statistical software with using descriptive and analytical statistics (Cox regression).Results: Out of 772 patients with breast cancer, 120 patients (15.5%) had TNBC. The mean age of patients with TNBC was 46.3±10.73 and that in patients with other phenotypes was and 47.6±11.18. The median of follow-up time was 18.1 months. In this study disease-free survival of all patients was 0.87; also disease-free survival in TNBC and other phenotypes groups was 0.88. In the group of patients with other phenotypes, the tumor size (p=0.01), number of involved lymph nodes (p=0.0001) and age (p=0.003) were effective in disease-free survival, but none of these variables were effective in the TNBC group (p> 0.05). There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms ofmetastases (bone and non-bone)(p> 0.05). Conclusion: Although previous studies pointed out that the overall survival of TNBC patients is lower,but the results of this study showed that there is no significant difference between patients with TNBC and patients with other phenotypes in terms of the time of metastases and its site. One of the reasons for this could be using different types of treatment especially elimination of hormone therapy and target therapy.

Keywords:

triple negative breast cancer , metastases , survival