Current and future therapies for triple-negative breast cancer

Abstract

Triple-negative breast cancer remains an aggressive and biologically heterogeneous breast cancer subtype. Although the therapeutic landscape has expanded, durable disease control remains clinically challenging in many settings. Existing reviews often organize TNBC therapy by drug class or molecular subtype, which can obscure how treatment response is shaped by interacting biological layers. Here, we review current and emerging therapeutic strategies through a three-layer framework: tumor-cell-intrinsic vulnerabilities, the local immune and stromal microenvironment, and host-level systemic modifiers. We summarize established approaches, including chemotherapy, immune checkpoint blockade, antibody–drug conjugates and PARP inhibition in biomarker-defined settings, and distinguish them from maturing or exploratory strategies such as pathway-directed therapy, epigenetic modulation, anti-vascular combinations, regulated cell-death induction, cellular therapy, vaccines, microbiome-related interventions, liquid biopsy, AI-supported multiomics and adaptive trial designs. This framework integrates evidence level, disease stage, biomarker reliability and patient tolerance into treatment selection for TNBC precision therapy.