My sister was just diagnosed with triple negative stage 3 gradellb breast cancer. I'm trying to find info on survival rates and treatment

I know of two excellent resources. Dr. Pam Popper of the Wellness Forum recommends:
Cancerdecisions.com AND I recommend Dr. Susan Silberstein, founder and director of CACE: Center for Advancement of Cancer Education www.beatcancer.org excellent.

Hi, Anon. Welcome to EmpowHer. I'm so glad you found us, and I hope I can help some with your questions.

So sorry to hear of your sister's diagnoses. Let's see what kind of information we can find for you.

First, I had to try to educate myself a little. Here's an explanation from the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation:

"Triple Negative breast cancer can be extremely aggressive and more likely to recur and metastasize than other subtypes of breast cancer. It typically is responsive to chemotherapy, although it can be more difficult to treat because it is unresponsive to the most effective receptor targeted treatments.

"These subtypes of breast cancer are generally diagnosed based upon the presence, or lack of, three "receptors" known to fuel most breast cancers: estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). The most successful treatments for breast cancer target these receptors.

"Unfortunately, none of these receptors are found in women with triple negative breast cancer. In other words, a triple negative breast cancer diagnosis means that the offending tumor is estrogen receptor-negative, progesterone receptor-negative and HER2-negative, thus giving rise to the name "triple negative breast cancer." On a positive note, this type of breast cancer is typically responsive to chemotherapy."

OK. So that's the general explanation of the cancer. The stages of the cancer are as follows:

Here is the TNBC's home page. There are links to other resources and forums, including ask-the-expert pages and bulletin boards where TNBC patients and their families and friends post to one another:

http://www.tnbcfoundation.org/index.html

and here's a link to their welcome page to their forums:

http://www.tnbcfoundation.org/tnbc/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8&FID=3&PR=3

The TNBC site was started by a group of women who have dealt with this cancer themselves or with their friends. In searching for information on this different kind of cancer, they decided there needed to be more available. You can see their care throughout the site.

Here's a story on TNBC from breastcancer.org, which explains why the grade is often higher upon diagnosis than in other breast cancers. Please notice the links down the left side to areas on research and treatment:

http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/diagnosis/trip_neg/behavior.jsp

OK. Let's talk about stages and grades of cancer.

Stages of cancer, according to breastcancer.org:

Cancer stage is based on the size of the tumor, whether the cancer is invasive or non-invasive, whether lymph nodes are involved, and whether the cancer has spread beyond the breast. Stages are 0, I, IIA, IIB, IIIA, IIIB, IIIC and IV.

Grades of cancer are used to classify cancer cells in terms of how abnormal they look under a microscope and how quickly the tumor is likely to grow and spread. The Bloom-Richardson system is used for grading breast cancer, and has a scale of 1 - 3, with 1 being the slowest-growing and 3 being the fastest-growing.

Here's an explanation of the grading system:

http://breastcancer.about.com/od/diagnosis/tp/tumor_grade.htm

OK, so what does all this mean?

Triple negative -- a breast cancer where chemo is effective but treatments targeting three receptor cells are not.

Grade 3 -- a faster-growing cancer.

Stage IIB -- the tumor is larger than 2 but no larger than 5 centimeters and has spread to the axillary lymph nodes, OR
the tumor is larger than 5 centimeters but has not spread to the axillary lymph nodes.

First of all, anon, does all this square up with what your sister's doctors have told her? I am just going on the information in your question, and want to be certain I'm not getting any of that information wrong.

Second, do you yet know whether it has spread to any lymph nodes?

This may be daunting information, I know. Here's a bit of good news from a story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I found the story fascinating -- doctors didn't always know that breast cancers differed in this way, and so your sister will get more targeted treatment than she might have in the past:

"A woman's risk of getting cancer again within five years of her initial diagnosis (breast or another form) are higher with a triple negative cancer. But if she's cancer free for seven to 10 years, and beyond, her risk for recurrence is less than with other breast cancers."

Here's that full story:

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/health/stories/2008/06/17/Triple_Negative_Breast_Cancer.html

This next story is pretty dense, I'm warning you. It's about optimizing treatment for TNBC patients and it's written by doctors primarily for doctors -- it was written for the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. But if you can print it out and read it and perhaps take it to your sister's doctor, it does discuss different therapies and field studies on TNBC:

http://cme.medscape.com/viewarticle/569483

Here's a very good story on TNBC, which includes the following information about five-year survival rates (TNBC rates are somewhat lower than other rates):

"Five-year survival rates tend to be lower for triple-negative bc. A study done in 2007 of more than 50,000 women with all stages of breast cancer found that 77 percent of women with triple-negative bc survived at least 5 years, compared to 93 percent of women with other types of bc. The recurrence and survival figures are averages for all women with triple-negative bc. A variety of factors influence an individual woman's prognosis."

http://www.healthmad.com/Women/Triple-Negative-Breast-Cancer.241457

That story also addresses treatments, and one of the most frustrating parts of it for TNBC patients: there are no focused therapies for prevention of recurrence or metastasis beyond chemotherapy and radiation. It does discuss the possible role of vitamin D3.

And here's a very informative piece in Science Daily:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080411150927.htm

I so hope that some of this information is what you are seeking.

What has your sister's doctor told her about her treatment options and prognosis?

Are there more specifics that we can research for you?

I'm so glad your sister has you in her corner. Support and information are strong weapons in a cancer fight. Please write back and let us know more about what's going on.