Abstract
Approximately 10-20% of breast cancers don't express hormones (estrogen receptor [ER], progesterone receptor [PR]) or human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER2) proteins termed as triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). This is an aggressive heterogeneous tumor with poor prognosis and highly resistant to chemotherapy that is currently the only available treatment along with surgery and radiotherapy. Despite research advances with the microarrays-based definition of basal-like subtype and PA RP drugs neither taxonomy nor signaling pathway have been established as standard approaches to diagnose and predict therapeutic response while no effective targeted drug has been discovered. Here I discuss the biomedical research progress but also the limitations in clinical practice to manage this difficult-to-treat disease. Moreover, the future perspectives of next-generation sequencing technologies for genomic, transcriptomic and genomic analysis promising the next-generation drugs and biomarkers are also summarized.

(Citation: Gastric & Breast Cancer 2012; 11(3): 135-139)

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