OBJECTIVETo investigate the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis in young patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-negative, progesterone receptor(PR)-negative, and Her-2-negative (triple-negative) breast cancer (TNBC).

METHODS94 young patients (< or = 35 years old) with TNBC at the Cancer Hospital of CAMS between January 1999 and December 2007 were included in this study. The clinicopathological features and prognosis of those 94 patients were retrospectively evaluated.

RESULTSAmong 786 young patients with breast cancer, 94 patients (12.0%) were triple-negative. The median age of the 94 young TNBC patients was 31 years.81 patients (86.2%) were diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma. 82.0% of the patients were classified as T1 or T2. The TNM stages included: 17 patients in stage I (18.1%), 48 in stage II (51.1%), 28 in stage III (29.8%) and 1 in stage IV (1.1%). 14 patients (14.9%) were diagnosed with lymphovascular invasion. The 1-, 3-, 5- and 7-year disease-free survival (DFS) was 88.3%, 66.9%, 59.7% and 59.7%, respectively. The corresponding overall survival (OS) rate was 98.9%, 85.6%, 72.9% and 69.6%, respectively. The univariate analysis showed that T stage, lymph node metastasis, clinical stage and lymphovascular invasion were correlated with the overall survival. However, only vascular invasion was showed to be an independent prognostic factor assessed by multivariate analysis. 33 patients developed recurrence or metastatic TNBC during the follow-up period. Among those 33 cases, 29 had recurrent or metastatic diseases within 3 years postoperatively and the other 4 cases after 3 years following surgery.

CONCLUSIONYoung patients with TNBC represent distinctive clinicopathological and prognostic characteristics. Progression on tailored treatment for such population is still crucial. Further studies on rational individualized treatment regimen are warranted.