Broadening Chemotherapy Options for Metastatic Breast Cancer?

We often hypothesize that chemotherapy will become less important as targeted agents emerge for treating patients with advanced disease. Despite examples of success of this approach (such as with trastuzumab and lapatanib), the promise still remains firmer than the results; thus, the search for new chemotherapy options continues. Preliminary results of the phase III EMBRACE trial of eribulin — a halichondrin derivative that inhibits microtubule dynamics — have shown improvements in survival and response rates with eribulin versus treatment of physician's choice (largely chemotherapy) in heavily pretreated patients with metastatic breast cancer (JW Oncol Hematol Jul 13 2010).

Now, investigators have conducted a manufacturer-sponsored, single-…