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Triple-negative breast cancer: new treatment strategies in the era of precision medicine

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Abstract

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) remains the most aggressive cluster of all breast cancers, which is due to its rapid progression, high probabilities of early recurrence, and distant metastasis resistant to standard treatment. Following the advances in cancer genomics and transcriptomics that can illustrate the comprehensive profiling of this heterogeneous disease, it is now possible to identify different subclasses of TNBC according to both intrinsic signals and extrinsic microenvironment, which have a huge influence on predicting response to established therapies and picking up novel therapeutic targets for each cluster. In this review, we summarize basic characteristics and critical subtyping systems of TNBC, and particularly discuss newly found prospective targets and relevant medications, which were proved promising in clinical trials, thus shedding light on the future development of precision treatment strategies.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81922048, 81874112, 81874113, 81572583, and 81502278), the Fok Ying-Tong Education Foundation for College Young Teachers (171034), the Training Plan of Excellent Talents in Shanghai Municipality Health System (2017YQ038), the “Chen Guang” project supported by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and Shanghai Education Development Foundation (17CG01), Shanghai Pujiang Program (18PJD007), and the Training Plan of Excellent Talents of Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center (YJYQ201602). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Breast Surgery, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center; Key Laboratory of Breast Cancer in Shanghai, Department of Oncology, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Song-Yang Wu, Hai Wang, Zhi-Ming Shao & Yi-Zhou Jiang

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Wu, SY., Wang, H., Shao, ZM. et al. Triple-negative breast cancer: new treatment strategies in the era of precision medicine. Sci. China Life Sci. 64, 372–388 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-020-1714-8

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