Clinical impact of eribulin in the treatment of breast cancer

SUMMARY  Metastatic breast cancer is considered incurable, with a 5-year survival of approximately 23%. However, sequential chemotherapy regimens produce clinical benefit for patients, including prolonged progression-free and overall survival times. Eribulin is a convenient (<5 min infusion) and novel treatment that has shown activity and efficacy and tolerability in advanced breast cancer patients in Phase II and Phase III trials. Eribulin has also shown encouraging results as first-line treatment, either alone in patients with HER2- disease or in combination with trastuzumab in patients with HER2+ disease, in Phase II trials.