The presence of the cell surface markers CD44+/CD49f+/CD133/2+ was significantly increased in normal adjacent tissue associated with patients with triple-negative breast cancer (nine of nine) compared with that in ER+ and Her2+ tumors combined (seven of fifty-two) (P <0.001); representative samples are shown in Figure 1 and Additional file1. This evidence concerns the gene CD44 and triple-negative breast carcinoma.