Current perspectives for treatment of Breast Cancer.

The last 2–3 years have brought significant changes to both the adjuvant and palliative treatment of breast cancer. The addition of paclitaxel to the adjuvant setting has brought the largest increase in benefit from adjuvant therapy since the initial CMF trials in the 1970s. Changes in the schedule of administration of the taxanes in the palliative setting have substantially diminished the toxicity without an apparent compromise in the efficacy of these important agents. The combination of chemotherapy and Herceptin in the first line treatment of metastatic breast cancer has resulted in enhancement of survival of women with advanced disease. In only a few short years, the future for women diagnosed with breast cancer has come to look substantially brighter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]