Characteristics of Triple Negative Breast Cancer and Treatment Ideas

  Breast cancer is the most common malignant tumor in women. In recent years, the incidence rate of breast cancer in China’s urban areas has been on the rise, with the incidence rates in Beijing and Shanghai reaching 45.0/100,000 and 54.9/100,000 respectively, which is close to the level of western countries with high prevalence of breast cancer and ranks first in the incidence of female malignant tumors, and the incidence is expected to remain on the rise in the next 20 years. Triple negative breast cancer refers to breast cancer with negative expression of ER, PR and Her-2, which is a special subtype of breast cancer and is a hot spot in breast cancer research at home and abroad due to its poor prognosis and lack of effective treatment.  TNBC accounts for about 12-24% of the breast cancer population. Its high histological grade, poor cell differentiation and high malignancy make it prone to early recurrence and visceral metastasis. However, because triple-negative breast cancer does not express hormone receptors and HER-2 gene, it cannot benefit from endocrine therapy and targeted drugs targeting HER-2 gene, making chemotherapy the only Western treatment for triple-negative breast cancer patients. Although triple-negative breast cancer is sensitive to chemotherapy, adjuvant chemotherapy is mostly followed by observation without more sequential treatment and has a high rate of local recurrence and distant metastasis. Then, how to further reduce the recurrence and metastasis rate, prolong the overall survival, reduce complications and improve the quality of life is a major issue facing triple negative breast cancer.  Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) should play a greater role in the treatment of breast cancer, especially in the treatment of TNBC. According to the idea of “treating the untreated disease” in TCM, it is necessary to “prevent the recurrence and metastasis of triple-negative breast cancer”. Our preliminary observation on 32 cases of triple-negative breast cancer patients showed that the DFS of triple-negative breast cancer patients treated with TCM reached 26.1 months. Therefore, the use of anti-tumor therapy with Chinese herbal medicines based on dialectical evidence is used for the consolidation of triple-negative breast cancer, and the clinical efficacy and safety of Chinese herbal medicines are observed through the combination of supporting the righteousness and eliminating the evil and taking active individualized treatment, hoping to further prolong the time of disease progression and overall survival of patients.