Mexican women with family history more likely to have triple-negative breast cancer vs. other types

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

According to new findings presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved in San Antonio, Texas, researchers from the University of California San Diego Moores Cancer Center in La Jolla, California, have found that patients of Mexican descent with breast cancer who had a family history of breast or ovarian cancer were nearly two times as likely to have triple negative breast cancer than other types of breast cancer.

For the study, researchers identified 1,150 women of Mexican descent with breast cancer, 14.9% of whom reported having a first-degree relative with breast or ovarian cancer. They found that women with a first-degree relative who had one of those cancers were nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer compared with other types of breast cancer.

The findings suggest that there will be implications in regard to prevention, screening, and treatment of women of Mexican descent with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer. Triple negative breast cancer is often associated with poor outcomes because it lacks the targets for common treatments.

Now, the researchers are investigating whether BRCA mutations are the cause of the association between family history and triple-negative breast cancer that was observed in this study.