The Renaissance of platinum-based chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer

Although anthracyclines and the taxanes comprise the most active first-line cytotoxic treatments in patients with hormone-insensitive or life-threatening metastatic breast cancer, many patients progress and require other chemotherapeutic agents. Platinum compounds have shown activity in a broad spectrum of human tumors in vitro and in vivo. For patients with metastatic breast cancer resistant to anthracyclines or taxanes, or who have received anthracyclines with or without taxanes in the adjuvant or neoadjuvant setting, no standard regimen exists and platinum-based chemotherapy is one of the several options available. Moreover, platinum compounds have shown synergistic activity with trastuzumab, a monoclonal antibody against overexpressing HER2 breast cancer. However, the definitive role of platinum compounds in the treatment of breast cancer is not yet well established and further trials are needed.