Changing treatment paradigms in metastatic breast cancer: Lessons learned

Advances in understanding tumor biology, particularly signaling pathways, have led to the development and approval of many novel agents and have changed the landscape of therapy for patients with metastatic breast cancer. This review highlights some of the recent successes and failures in breast cancer drug development, including strategies to overcome endocrine and human epidermal growth factor 2-neu (HER2) resistance, targeting triple-negative breast cancers (which do not express the HER2, estrogen, and progesterone receptors) through novel receptors, harnessing the immune system, and new ways of targeting angiogenesis. For patients with metastatic breast cancer, expanding therapeutic options through clinical trial participation is a crucial part of modern oncology practice. As we continue to learn how to use targeted therapies in the context of genomic medicine, analysis of the tumor in real-time may become increasingly important, giving researchers the information needed to start combining therapies in a biologically informed manner.