Innovations in drug therapy of breast cancer

Background. In previous years clear improvements in treatment were achieved in non-cytostatic therapy of breast cancer. These new treatments resulted in an improvement of both prognosis and a better quality of life for patients. Recommendations for cytostatic therapy are based more and more on the molecular subtypes of breast cancer. Aims. This article gives an overview of recent innovations in the drug therapy of breast cancer. Material and methods. This overview is based on the clinical trials which led to the approval of the respective drugs or which may in the future, further optimize the treatment of breast cancer. Results. The mTOR inhibitor everolimus has become established as the standard method in the therapy of hormone receptor positive and HER2/neu negative advanced breast cancer. Progress has also been made in the treatment of HER2/neu positive breast cancer: the dual targeting of HER2/neu positive breast cancer has become the standard in the first line treatment of metastatic breast cancer and the antibody drug conjugate trastuzumab-emtansine has been approved for treatment of HER2/neu positive metastatic breast cancer after prior therapy with trastuzumab and a taxane. Since 2013 trastuzumab may be also given subcutaneously instead of an intravenous infusion. The addition of carboplatin to the conventional neoadjuvant chemotherapy of triple negative breast cancer has also shown beneficial effects. Discussion. There have been multiple innovations in the drug therapy of breast cancer during recent years. Future studies should investigate how to best include these new drugs in the clinical practice following proof of principle trials.