The place of targeted therapies in the treatment of breast cancer in elderly women

The increased incidence of breast cancer in elderly women leads us to consider the use of targeted therapies specifically in this population. Indeed, these treatments have contributed to a significant improvement in progression free survival and overall survival of patients with breast cancer. In the absence of studies confined to the elderly population, oncogeriatricians have a duty not only to collect objective data on efficacy and safety of targeted therapy from primary studies, but also to employ the oncogeriatric assessment process to look for the criteria of frailty specific to the elderly patient. As previously for chemotherapy, onco-geriatricians must deal with the lack of appropriate data and be content with sub-group information, from which the reliability of the evidence is uncertain. In this review, we examine data available in the literature on the use of targeted therapies in the management of breast cancer in elderly women, so as to guide the clinician in his choice of therapy and his management of toxicity in this growing population.