Association Between BRCA Status and Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a subtype of aggressive breast cancer and characterized by a lack of the expression of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2. genes are tumor-suppressor genes that are involved in DNA damage repair and mutations of genes may increase the risk of developing breast cancer and/or ovarian cancer due to defective DNA repair mechanisms. However, the relationship between status and TNBC needs to be further investigated and validated. The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the association between status and TNBC. We systematically searched the electronic databases of MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, and Cochrane Library to identify relevant publications from April, 1959 to November, 2017. The data from the studies were examined by a meta-analysis using STATA software to calculate the odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) by fixed-effect and random-effect models. We identified 16 qualified studies from 527 publications with 46,870 breast cancer patients including 868 mutations ( ) carriers, 739 mutations ( ) carriers, and 45,263 non-carriers. The results showed that breast cancer patients with carriers were more likely to have TNBC than those of carriers (OR: 3.292; 95% CI: 2.773-3.909) or non-carriers (OR: 8.889; 95% CI: 6.925-11.410). Furthermore, high expression of nuclear grade and large tumor burden (>2 cm) were significantly more common in breast cancer patients with carriers than those of carriers (OR: 2.663; 95% CI: 1.731-4.097; = 0.211) or non-carriers (OR: 1.577; 95% CI: 1.067-2.331; = 0.157). The data suggest that breast cancer patients with are more likely to have TNBC, high nuclear grade, and larger tumor burden.