Despite advances in early diagnosis, prevention, and treatment,
breast cancer remains the second-leading cause of
cancer-related deaths in women. The 5-year survival rate for patients with metastatic
breast cancer (MBC) is just 24%. However, some forms of MBC appear to be more aggressive than others.
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC; lacking overexpression of
human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 [HER2] and expression of
estrogen and
progesterone receptors) and breast
cancers that overexpress HER2 are the 2 biologically defined subtypes with the worst prognoses. Although a number of effective options have been developed for the treatment of HER2-overexpressing disease, TNBC remains a difficult-to-treat subtype. In addition to
hormone receptor and HER2 status, multiple other factors are predictive of relatively poorer clinical outcomes, including visceral
metastasis, short disease-free interval between the end of treatment for early-stage disease and diagnosis of MBC, and higher number of metastatic sites. There is an urgent need to improve
therapy for patients with aggressive forms of
breast cancer.
Taxanes are considered among the most active classes of compounds against
breast cancer. This review specifically examines the clinical trials in which
nab-paclitaxel was used to treat patients with MBC and factors associated with poor prognosis.