The Many Faces of Triple Negative Breast Cancer
T. Potecă, M. Comănescu, A. Potecă, C. CocosilaOriginal article, no. 4, 2014
Triple negative breast tumors are described by the lack ofimmunohistochemical expression for hormone receptors (ER and PgR) and Her2 neu. The immunophenotype is, in general,associated with young age and high biological aggressiveness,its frequency in the literature ranging from 10 to 20%. In ourstudy we performed a retrospective classification of triplenegative breast cancers in order to show the large spectrum oflesions that can embrace this very special phenotype.Clinicopathological parameters evaluated included age, tumorsize and macroscopic appearance, histological subtype andassociation with in situ component, the degree of tumordifferentiation (nuclear pleomorphism, mitosis count, theformation of tubules), presence of lymph nodes or distantmetastases. Triple negative breast cancers represent a particularsubtype of tumors but their, now famous, aggressiveness appliesonly to some histological subtypes. It is very important tocorrelate the histological features and the phenotypicalexpression.
