Novel Cytotoxic Backbones and Targeted Therapies: Recent Data and Ongoing Clinical Trials

Novel therapies are emerging for treatment of patients with localized or advanced breast cancer. Targeted therapies such as trastuzumab, lapatinib, and bevacizumab have demonstrated significant clinical benefit in the metastatic setting, and trastuzumab has also improved patient outcome as adjuvant therapy in HER2+ breast cancer. Novel chemotherapies are also being developed to improve drug delivery, enhance efficacy, or decrease drug toxicity. These novel cytotoxic agents are being combined with established targeted therapies and are showing early promise for the treatment of patients with advanced breast cancer. Finally, new targeted therapies have shown clinical benefit, either as single agents or in combination with established targeted therapy or chemotherapy.