Novel immunologic and biologic therapies for breast cancer

The treatment of breast cancer has benefited substantially from the introduction of trastuzumab in 1998. Yet trastuzumab only represents the first of a series of newer biologic therapies that will change the manner in which patients with breast cancer are treated. Initially, biologic therapies will be used in combination with existing chemotherapeutic agents. However, as biologic therapies improve, chemotherapeutic agents are likely to be replaced with biologic agents that are more effective, less toxic, and more patient- and tumor-specific. Promising classes of agents include monoclonal antibodies and cancer vaccines.