188 Background: Although African-American women (AAW) have lower incidence of breast cancer, they have higher breast cancer related mortality compared to Caucasian women (CW). The incidence of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is as high as 20%-26% in AAW compared to 15% in CW. The incidence of TNBC is higher in women younger than age fifty, compared to non-triple-negative breast cancer (NTNBC). TNBC also presents at a more advanced stage. We studied the characteristics of TNBC in AAW diagnosed at Howard University Hospital. Methods: We identified all the newly diagnosed invasive breast cancer patients who had assessable data for ER, PR, and HER2/neu status from January 2004 to December of 2009, by reviewing our institution’s tumor registry. ER, PR positivity was determined if equal or more than 10% of the tumor cells tested positive by IHC stain. Her-2/neu was determined to be positive if the IHC stain was (3+). Tumors that tested equivocal (2+) were sent for FISH testing. Age and stage data was collected on all patients. Results: Between Jan 2004 and Dec of 2009, a total of 294 AAW were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and had enough data for evaluation. Seventy four (25%) patients had TNBC. Among those, 22 patients (30%) were less than 50 years old at the time of diagnosis, compared to 57 patients (26%) of the NTNBC (P-value = 0.5). Fifty two (74%) patients with TNBC were diagnosed with early stage disease (stages 1 and 2), compared to 150 (73%) of the NTNBC (P-value = 1); with 4 patients with TNBC and 15 patients with NTNBC had missing staging. (See table.) Conclusions: The incidence of TNBC in our cohort of AAW is 25% which is the same as the incidence reported in the literature. Even though TNBC patients are known to have worse prognosis, this may not be attributed to the stage of the disease at presentation or the age of the patient since both group showed no statistically significant difference in both variables. [Table: see text]