Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Sep;20(7):1071-82.
doi: 10.1007/s10552-009-9331-1. Epub 2009 Apr 3.

The epidemiology of triple-negative breast cancer, including race

Katrina F Trivers  1 , Mary Jo Lund, Peggy L Porter, Jonathan M Liff, Elaine W Flagg, Ralph J Coates, J William Eley
Affiliations

The epidemiology of triple-negative breast cancer, including race

Katrina F Trivers et al. Cancer Causes Control. 2009 Sep.

Abstract

Objective: Predictors of intrinsic breast cancer subtypes, including the triple-negative (TN) subtype, are largely unknown. We evaluated whether anthropometrics, demographics, and reproductive history were associated with distinct breast cancer subtypes.

Methods: Invasive breast tumors from a population-based case-control study of 476 (116 black and 360 white) Atlanta women aged 20-54, diagnosed between 1990 and 1992, were centrally reviewed and immunohistochemically analyzed for estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2); then grouped [TN (ER-PR-HER2-); ER-PR-HER2+; ER/PR+HER2+; ER/PR+HER2- (case-only reference group)]. Data were from interviews and anthropometric measurements; adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated using logistic regression, including both case-only and case-control comparisons.

Results: From the case-only analyses and compared with the ER/PR+HER2- subtype, women with TN tumors were more likely to be obese than normal/underweight [OR = 1.89 (95% CI = 1.22, 2.92)]. Regardless of HER2 status, ER-PR- tumors were associated with black race, young age at first birth, having a recent birth, and being overweight.

Conclusions: Distinct breast cancer subtypes have unique sociodemographic, anthropometric and reproductive characteristics and possibly different pathways for development.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Sorlie T, Perou CM, Tibshirani R, et al. Gene expression patterns of breast carcinomas distinguish tumor subclasses with clinical implications. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2001;98:10869–10874. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sotiriou C, Neo SY, McShane LM, et al. Breast cancer classification and prognosis based on gene expression profiles from a population-based study. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003;100:10393–10398. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sorlie T, Wang Y, Xiao C, et al. Distinct molecular mechanisms underlying clinically relevant subtypes of breast cancer: gene expression analyses across three different platforms. BMC Genomics. 2006;7:127. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Carey LA, Perou CM, Livasy CA, et al. Race, breast cancer subtypes, and survival in the Carolina breast cancer study. JAMA. 2006;295:2492–2502. - PubMed
    1. Perou CM, Sorlie T, Eisen MB, et al. Molecular portraits of human breast tumours. Nature. 2000;406:747–752. - PubMed

Publication types