Updates in adjuvant systemic treatment of breast cancer

Breast cancer is a significant public health burden with more than 200,000 new cases diagnosed in the United States each year. Although many incident cases represent localized disease, a significant proportion of women with early stage breast cancer eventually experience a distant relapse and ultimately die of metastatic breast cancer complications. Consequently, investigators strive to improve the adjuvant treatment paradigm and thus, optimize outcomes for women with early stage breast cancer. Within the last year a study describing a decline in incident breast cancer cases in the United States was reported. In addition, the results from a number of notable adjuvant treatment studies were reported or updated. Innovations in taxane-containing strategies and dose dense chemotherapy strategies were prominently featured. In addition, a number of insights pertaining to the treatment of women with HER2-positive breast cancer were reported. An overview of selected recently reported studies will be reviewed here.