Effect of Androgen receptors in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Given Neoadjuvant Therapy: A Systematic Review and...

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a type of breast cancer that does not express the estrogen receptor (ER), the progesterone receptor (PR), or the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). TNBC has limited treatment targets, including the androgen receptor (AR). However, the therapeutic strategies-based AR expression in TNBC remains uncertain. The aim of this study is to compare the effect of neoadjuvant treatment on TNBC androgen receptor-positive versus receptor-negative patients.

A systematic search was performed through databases to search for cohort studies that compared the effect of neoadjuvant treatment on TNBC androgen receptor-positive versus TNBC receptor-negative patients. The Mantel-Haenzel and Inverse Variance methods obtained a fixed-effects model of pooled odds or hazard ratios for the primary outcomes.

Fifteen cohort studies, including 2,713 patients with TNBC, were assessed. The effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy is less superior on AR+ patients than AR- (OR = 0.60, p = 0.02). For survival outcomes, the AR+ subtype is associated with better 3-year DFS (HR = 0.93, p = 0.69) and 3-year OS (HR = 0.71, p = 0.20) compared with AR-. The statistical value is insignificant.

The prognostic value of AR expression in TNBC is not fully understood, which is an inconclusive result.