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Updated: Nov 6, 2025
Studying Triple Negative Breast Cancer Using Orthotopic Breast Cancer Model
Published on: March 20, 2020
Single Hormone Receptor-Positive Metaplastic Breast Cancer: Similar Outcome as Triple-Negative Subtype
Jinqian Mao1, Jin Hu2, Yanting Zhang3
1Department of Vascular Surgery, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Background:
Metaplastic breast cancer (MBC) is a rare and aggressive subtype of the breast. To understand the characteristics and prognosis of single hormone receptor-positive (HR+) MBC (estrogen receptor-positive [ER+]/progesterone receptor-negative [PR-] and ER-/PR+), we compared these tumors to double HR+ tumors as well as HR- tumors.
Patients And Methods:
The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database was used to analyze MBC between 1975 and 2016. The effect of HR status was evaluated using a multivariate Cox regression model.
Results:
We included 3369 patients with a median follow-up time of 42 months (range 0-322 months). In this study, 280 (8.3%) cases were double HR+ tumors, 2597 (77.1%) were double HR- tumors, and 492 (14.6%) cases were single HR+ tumors, of which 159 (4.7%) cases were ER-/PR+ tumors and 333 (9.9%) were ER+/PR- tumors. On multivariate Cox analysis, the prognosis was related to age, race/ethnicity, tumor grade, TNM stage, and surgery. HR status remained no impact on breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS). In the Kaplan-Meier curve, HR status was not associated with better BCSS or overall survival (OS). In patients without HER2 overexpression, the BCSS and OS of ER+/PR- and ER-/PR+ tumors were not significantly different from that of ER-/PR- and ER+/PR+ tumors. The difference remains no significant in patients with HER2 overexpression.
Conclusions:
In comparison with both ER-/PR- and ER+/PR+ tumors, we have identified clinically and biologically distinct features of single HR+ tumors. In patients with or without HER2 overexpression, the prognosis of single HR+ tumors was similar to ER-/PR- and ER+/PR+ tumors.
