Multicentre Study to Determine the Feasibility of Using an Integrated Consent Model to Compare Three Standard of Care Regimens for The Treatment of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer in the Neoadjuvant/Adjuvant Setting (REaCT-TNBC)

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a term applied to breast cancer cases that have \<1% expression of the estrogen receptor (ER) and the progesterone receptor (PR) and do not over express HER2. TNBC is diagnosed in 15-20% of breast cancer cases and tends to occur in younger women and have biologically more aggressive high grade disease. Clinically, patients with TNBC have a poorer prognosis compared to patients diagnosed with other breast cancer subtypes. Because of the aggressive phenotype and due to observations that systemic chemotherapy offers significantly higher benefit in ER negative disease, current treatment guidelines from provincial and other organizations recommend that patients receive adjuvant systemic chemotherapy for any TNBC greater than 0.5 cm in greatest diameter or node positive independent of primary tumor size. Currently, there is no world-wide standard recommended chemotherapy regimen for the management of TNBC in the neoadjuvant/adjuvant setting, with treatments varying from region and institution. As physicians do not know what the "best" treatment for patients is, genuine uncertainty ("clinical equipoise") exists. Physicians will choose between different "standards" in their personal practice, using idiosyncratic decision making processes, without the physician or the patient knowing the optimal option. This is not good for patients, physicians and society as a whole. Determining the optimal treatment remains an important medical issue for patients, physicians and society. This study will survey opinions on a novel method to allow comparisons of established standard of care prophylactic treatment using the "integrated consent model" as part of a pragmatic clinical trial and attempt to compare head to head standard chemotherapy regimens in patients with TNBC.