Researchers are inching closer to finding treatments to better improve the chances of survival of women with triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive form of the condition which strikes younger women, African Americans, Hispanics and  BRCA1-mutation carriers.

The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

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Unlike other forms of breast cancer, triple-negative breast cancer does not respond to hormone therapy because the growth of the cancer is not supported by estrogen and progesterone. Patients with this specific cancer test negative for estrogen receptors (ER-), progesterone receptors (PR-), and HER2 (HER2-).
Because no particular abnormality can be targeted with medication, the usual treatment patients with this cancer undergo is chemotherapy. 

Depending on the stage of cancer a patient is in, triple-negative breast cancer is hard to treat, will more likely spread and recur quickly than expected.

Scientists studied whether or not the addition of the drugs carboplatin and/or bevacizumab to the usual treatments given to triple-breast cancer patients would result in better outcomes. Over 440 women across the United States joined the clinical trial.

William M Sikov, a medical oncologist in the Breast Health Center and associate director for clinical research in the Program in Women's Oncology at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, shared that the addition of either of the two drugs showed a dramatic increase of patients who achieved a pCR with the preoperative treatment. 

Sikov is hoping that this discovery will mean that fewer women with the particular breast cancer will relapse and die from the disease. However, he also shared that they need to delve more into the study in order to definitely prove the efficacy of the treatment.

Of the two drugs, Sikov shared that the results from adding carboplatin was more promising since it also had less side effects.