Sign up to our free newsletter to get the latest news delivered straight to your inbox.

Although it is commonly known that breast cancer is classified into different stages, many may be unaware that there are also different types of breast cancer. One rare form of the disease is triple-negative breast cancer, which disproportionately impacts Black women under 40.

An aggressive type, triple-negative breast cancer tends to grow and spread faster. It also has fewer treatment options because it lacks the three receptors—estrogen, progesterone and HER2—that many hormone-based therapies target.

Sign up for our Daily eBlast to get coverage on Black communities from the media company who has been doing it right for over 133 years.

Baltimorean Tara Doaty, 44, was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer in 2024. She had gone in for her yearly mammogram at the top of the year, and her results came back normal. But in September 2024, while she was doing some dry brushing at home, she felt a lump. The pressure caused it to press against a nerve—a rare symptom, since tumors typically don’t move or cause pain.

She immediately went to her OB-GYN, who suspected it might be fatty tissue but still referred her for a mammogram and ultrasound. She was told she had cancer before even getting a biopsy.

“I was utterly devastated. I have a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, I eat very well. I exercise.  I grow organic food in a garden. I had genetic testing done because I’m under 50, and I didn’t have any genetic markers for it,” said Doaty. “I was angry, and I was confused because I had positioned myself to do everything right. I never thought cancer was going to be a part of my story.”

A couple weeks after the biopsy confirmed triple-negative breast cancer in one breast, an MRI uncovered estrogen-positive breast cancer in the other. With two types of breast cancer, doctors treated the most aggressive form first, which was the triple-negative.

Knowing that Doaty had a physically- and emotionally-taxing journey ahead of her, friends and family stepped up to support her.

“My village created a spreadsheet so that I never went to a chemo appointment alone the entire time. My chemo days were on Fridays, and if I got dehydrated over the weekend from being sick, someone was there to take me to get fluids that Monday,” said Doaty. “When I started the harder chemo, in addition to someone taking me to treatment, someone stayed the night with me because I was very weak.”