Introduction/Background Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterized by worse prognosis compared to other breast cancer subtypes. However due to different molecular subtypes within TNBC and thus different disease aggressiveness there is a need to establish clinical markers signalling disease aggressiveness and thus treatment. The aim of this study therefore was to identify clinical markers in TNBC disease prognosis.

Methodology We identified through a retrospective data analysis at the University Medical Center Maribor 88 patients with operable TNBC between the years 2010 and 2017. By use of multivariate analysis specific factors correlating with poorer prognosis have been identified.

Results Eighty eight patients with operable TNBC were identified. Node-negative TNBC patients (n=56) were diagnosed at 59.1 years (SD 13.5) and mean tumor size 26.8 mm (SD 17.5). Thirty-two patients (n=32) were diagnosed with node-positive TNBC at mean age 57.4 years (SD 13.1) and mean tumor size 29.8 mm (SD 19.7). In this cohort (n=88), twelve patients (n=12) died and ten (n=10) patients had disease recurrence/metastases. Multifactorial analysis showed, that greater tumor size (p=0.009) and lymph node ratio (LNR) (p=0.011) were correlated with significantly more deaths. Higher LNR was significantly correlated with disease specific death p=0.001 (Mann-Whitney Test; mean rank 40.3 vs. 63) as well as with greater tumor size p=0.020 (Mann-Whitney Test; mean rank 43.4 vs. 61.8). However, there was no correlation of tumor size (p=0.156) or lymph node ratio (p=0.069) in disease recurrence/metastasis.

Conclusion Our single-institution analysis shows that LNR and tumor size are predictive factors of overall survival in triple negative breast cancer. Larger studies correlating molecular subtypes of TNBC and patient with high LNR should be explored.

Disclosure Nothing to disclose.