Word.ws English Dictionary

triple-negative

triple-negative adjective: of a breast cancer: characterized by the lack of expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2).

Adjective

triple-negative (not comparable)

  1. Of a breast cancer: characterized by the lack of expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2).
    • Multiple BrCa [breast cancer] microarray datasets (Sorlie et al PNAS 2003; van't Veer et al, Nature 2002; Sotiriou et al, PNAS 2003) suggest that 90% of BBT [basal breast tumor] are ER-negative, PR-negative, and HER-2 nonamplified (Perou C, unpublished). Thus, this “triple negative” phenotype may...2004 July 15, L. A. Carey, C. M. Perou, L. G. Dressler, et al., “Race and the poor prognosis basal breast tumor (BBT) phenotype in the population-based Carolina Breast Cancer Study (CBCS)”, Meeting...

Forms of triple-negative

alternative formtriple negative

Origin of triple-negative

First attested in 2004.

Questions about triple-negative

What does triple-negative mean?
Triple-negative means of a breast cancer: characterized by the lack of expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2).
What part of speech is triple-negative?
Triple-negative is an adjective.

Words near triple-negative in the dictionary

  1. triple-headers
  2. triple-jumper
  3. triple-jumpers
  4. triple-lock
  5. triple-masted
  6. triple-negative
  7. Triple-O
  8. triple-SIM
  9. triple-stranded
  10. triple-tail
  11. triple-tails

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: triple-negative (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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