{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]],"date-time":"2026-09-09T11:15:47Z","timestamp":1788952547676,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":40,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]],"date-time":"2026-09-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1788912000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Pharmacol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive and heterogeneous breast cancer subtype with early recurrence and limited therapeutic targets. The evidence reviewed here spans several non-equivalent intervention classes: licensed or commercial multi-component Chinese medicine products, standardized trial formulations, experimental botanical mixtures, and isolated constituents, fractions, or derivatives. We use the umbrella term Chinese medicine-based interventions (CMBIs) only for evidence mapping and do not assume pharmacological, manufacturing, or regulatory equivalence among these classes. Evidence was appraised on two independent dimensions: relevance to TNBC and study design\/methodological robustness. TNBC-specific clinical evidence is limited to a small number of randomized and observational studies with dissimilar endpoints; a 2022 meta-analysis reported favorable pooled estimates but also substantial methodological weaknesses and intervention heterogeneity. Preclinical findings suggest pathway-associated effects involving apoptosis, ferroptosis, immune regulation, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, metabolism, and chemotherapy response. Ferroptosis evidence is currently limited to preclinical Shuganning injection studies showing iron-dependent lipid peroxidation and ferrostatin-1-sensitive cell death, without clinical validation in TNBC. Overall, CMBIs should be regarded as investigational adjunctive approaches rather than established TNBC-specific therapies. Priorities include product-level chemical characterization, clinically relevant exposure assessment, model-diverse causal validation, multicenter trials, and preparation-specific safety and interaction monitoring.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fphar.2026.1787613","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]],"date-time":"2026-09-09T10:40:07Z","timestamp":1788950407000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Chinese medicine-based interventions in triple-negative breast cancer: mechanistic evidence, clinical findings, and translational challenges-a narrative review"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Guoli","family":"Feng","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University","place":["Zunyi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Changju","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University","place":["Zunyi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Taolang","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University","place":["Zunyi, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"BSR20204092","DOI":"10.1042\/BSR20204092","article-title":"Role of ABCB1 in mediating chemoresistance of triple-negative breast cancers","volume":"41","author":"Abd El-Aziz","year":"2021","journal-title":"Biosci. 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