Decreased Survival in African Patients with Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Abstract

Introduction: Triple Negative Breast Carcinomas (TNBC) are more prevalent in younger women especially those with African Ancestry, in whom the disease appears to be more aggressive. Since there are no data on Africans living in continental Europe, we sought to analyse a sample of African women from a European country and determine if, like African Americans, they have more aggressive tumor biology and poorer outcomes. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of TNBC to compare clinical and pathological features and survival between African and non-African patients. All women presented with breast cancer (BC), between 2005 and 2014, to a single general hospital, in Portugal. Results: A total of 144 (9.3% of the whole sample) TNBC patients were identified and amongst these, 17 were African (12%). African patients were not significantly younger than non-African patients (median age of 60 years vs 57.2 years, respectively, p=0.59). Regarding tumor size, nodal status and histologic grade at presentation, these variables were very similar between the two cohorts. Nevertheless, the prevalence of initially metastatic BC was significantly higher among the African population (41.2% vs 11%, p<0,005) and the outcome was worse for these patients (median survival: 62 vs 15 months, p<0.005). Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that African patients more frequently presented with late stage disease and worse survival outcome than the non-African population. These findings may be explained by more aggressive tumor biology.