title: Histomorphological Factors Predicting the Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  There is no standard targeted therapy for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Therefore, its management heavily depends on adjuvant chemotherapy. Using core needle biopsy, this study evaluated the histological factors of TNBC predicting the response to chemotherapy.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred forty-three TNBC patients who received single-regimen neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) with the combination of doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, and docetaxel were enrolled. The core needle biopsy specimens acquired before NAC were used to analyze the clinicopathologic variables and overall performance of the predictive model for therapeutic response.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Independent predictors of pathologic complete response after NAC were found to be higher number of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (p=0.007), absence of clear cytoplasm (p=0.008), low necrosis (p=0.018), and high histologic grade (p=0.039). In the receiver operating characteristics curve analysis, the area under curve for the combination of these four variables was 0.777.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present study demonstrated that a predictive model using the above four variables can predict therapeutic response to single-regimen NAC with the combination of doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, and docetaxel in TNBC. Therefore, adding these morphologic variables to clinical and genomic signatures might enhance the ability to predict the therapeutic response to NAC in TNBC.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Myongji Hospital, Goyang, Korea.
authors.forename: Yoon Yang
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Jeju National University Hospital, Jeju, Korea.
authors.forename: Chang Lim
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Hyun
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Bucheon St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Bucheon, Korea.
authors.forename: Min-Sun
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: In Ae
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Yul Ri
authors.initials: YR
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Bobae
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Shim
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Kyu Ho
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Han Suk
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Ryu
keywords: Core needle biopsy; Neoadjuvant therapy; Treatment outcome; Triple-negative breast neoplasms