Breast Cancer Therapy - A State of the Art Review

The treatment options for primary and metastatic breast cancer patients as well as the characteristics considered for therapy decision continue to become more diverse. New target therapies in combination with established chemotherapy regimens extend the range, however, potentially promising combinations do not always result in a benefit for the patient. Latest pharmacogenomics results hint towards prognosis and predictive factors, which do not only focus on the individual properties of the tumor, they also consider the hereditary genetics of the patient. As a result, state of the art therapy decision includes classical clinical as well as modern molecular biomarkers, however, pharmacoeconomic aspects continue to increase in importance in physicians' treatment algorithms. The Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2010 in Chicago revealed latest data for all aspects of the breast cancer therapy algorithm and allowed for partially controversial discussions.