Department of Oncology, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2019;1152:311-334. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-20301-6_17.
Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a more aggressive subtype of breast cancer and is characteristic of the absence of the expressions of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epithelial growth factor receptor 2 in breast tumor tissues. This subtype of breast cancer has the poorest prognosis, compared to other subtypes of breast cancer. TNBC is heterogeneous by showing several different histo-pathological and molecular subtypes with different prognosis and is more commonly found in younger age of women, especially African-American and Hispanic women. Recent epidemiological data indicate that TNBC is highly associated with overweight/obesity. Due to the absence of the common tumor biomarkers of breast cancer, the current molecular target therapy is not effective. TNBC patients have a shorter survival rate and an increased tumor recurrence. The concept of cancer stem cells (CSC), also called tumor initiating cells (TIC) has been more and more accepted and considered to contribute to aggressive phenotypes of many tumors including breast cancer. Moreover, CSC/TIC has been identified in the tumor tissues of breast cancer including TNBC. These rare subpopulations of CSC/TIC cells might be one of the key contributors to the aggressive phenotypes of TNBC such as drug treatment resistance, metastasis, and tumor recurrence. Therefore, targeting these CSC/TIC cells will provide a new therapeutic strategy for the treatment of TNBC.
三阴性乳腺癌（TNBC）是一种侵袭性更强的乳腺癌亚型，其特征是乳腺肿瘤组织中缺乏雌激素受体、孕激素受体和人表皮生长因子受体 2 的表达。与其他乳腺癌亚型相比，这种乳腺癌亚型的预后最差。TNBC 通过表现出几种不同的组织病理学和分子亚型而具有异质性，这些亚型具有不同的预后，并且更常见于年轻女性，尤其是非裔美国人和西班牙裔女性。最近的流行病学数据表明，TNBC 与超重/肥胖高度相关。由于缺乏乳腺癌常见的肿瘤生物标志物，目前的分子靶向治疗效果不佳。TNBC 患者的生存率较低，肿瘤复发率较高。癌症干细胞（CSC）的概念，也称为肿瘤起始细胞（TIC），越来越被接受，并被认为有助于包括乳腺癌在内的许多肿瘤的侵袭性表型。此外，CSC/TIC 已在乳腺癌包括 TNBC 的肿瘤组织中被鉴定出来。这些罕见的 CSC/TIC 细胞亚群可能是导致 TNBC 侵袭性表型的关键因素之一，如药物治疗耐药、转移和肿瘤复发。因此，针对这些 CSC/TIC 细胞将为治疗 TNBC 提供新的治疗策略。
