Hormonal receptor positive breast cancer: Adjuvant treatment, first line inmetastatic cancer and new strategies (mTOR inhibition)

Breast cancer is known to be the most commonly diagnosed malignancy and the maincause of death in women worldwide. Several studies have demonstrated that most these cancersare positive for estrogen and/ or progesterone receptors, which represent a constant risk forlate recurrence. Hormone therapy has been the first systemic treatment that has proven to beeffective in patients who express positive hormone receptors. Until recent years, tamoxifen andovarian suppression were the best hormone therapies available both for adjuvance and advanceddisease. Aromatase inhibitors, as well as the new mTOR pathway inhibitors, have driven animportant advance in the treatment of breast cancer by improving survival and disease-freeinterval for these patients. In this article, we make a review of these treatments and thestudies that have supported them, as well as their potential adverse effects. (C) 2015 Sociedad Mexicana de Oncologia. Published by Masson Doyma Mexico S. A.