Triple Negative

[dawnlyn]

My sister was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma grade 3 stage 3 with lymph node involvement 9 out of 13 nodes positive for cancer. She is also triple negative.  This happened so fast less then 6 weeks.  She is going next week for pet scan to see if spread anywhere else.  The doctors told us that her stage 3 could be moved to stage 4 if this has spread any further.  Why is this cancer so aggressive?  She is 51 years old.  We are all very worried and scared.  What exactly does the triple negative mean?  Any help anyone can give will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Dawnlyn

[zouzi]

Hi,
I am sorry to hear about your sister’s diagnosis and this difficult time you are all going through.Also I pray and hope that the cancer has not spread to other parts of her body.
Triple negative, indicates that the cancer cells tested negative for estrogen and progesterone receptors (ER- and PR-), and HER2 (HER2-). Testing negative for all three means the cancer is triple-negative.
This type of breast cancer, signifies that these particular breast cancer cells lack both estrogen and progesterone receptors and do not overexpress the HER-2 protein like other breast cancers. As such, hormone therapies such as tamoxifen and therapies that target the HER-2 protein such as Herceptin (trastuzumab) are not effective in treating triple-negative breast cancer.
TNBC Grade 3 is an aggressive type of cancer and should therefore receive aggressive tx.Your sister would  need  Chemotherapy after surgery, because this type of BC  respond well to Chemo.Her treating Doctors will plan a specific treatment for her and hopefully she’ll  succeed in beating this disease.
My best wishes to both of you and the rest of the family…

[dawnlyn]

Thank you so much for the information and the prayers same day my sister found out staging our father found out he has colon cancer.  I just feel so overwhelmed.  Thanks again.

Dawnlyn

[dawnlyn]

A related discussion, Mets to Liver was started.