There are several breast cancer drugs on the market right now. There are also new drugs that may become legal for the treatment of breast cancer in the future.

Recently, doctors have discovered a lot of information which led to targeted therapies which will help women who have or have had breast cancer. One new drug called Abraxane helps women who are taking chemotherapy. In one study patients who took Abraxane had almost twice the response rate to chemotherapy as patients who took other drugs.

Aromatase Inhibitors

Aromatase inhibitors were first approved by the FDA in 2000. These drugs are used to prevent tumor reoccurrence in women who had hormone-positive breast cancers. Hormone-positive breast cancers feed on estrogen. They are effective only on postmenopausal women. Aromatase inhibitors act only on estrogen that is produced outside the ovaries. These inhibitors are most effective at preventing the reoccurrence of cancer late in life.

HER2neu

Approximately 25 percent of breast cancers have too many copies of a gene called HER2neu, which helps control how genes repair, grow and divide. If there are extra copies of this gene in the body, too much HER2neu protein may be produced and cells may grow out of control. As a result, cancers involving HER2neu can be particularly aggressive.

Herceptin has been recently implemented to treat women with HER2-positive breast cancer. Herceptin is effective because it seeks out sells that produce too much HER2neu protein and acts on them. As a result, it can reduce a woman’s tumor size and increase her chance of survival.

A study released in 2004 found that women who received Herceptin as part of their pre-surgical chemotherapy were twice as likely as women who had not to have their tumors disappear completely. So far Herceptin is only used for women with breast cancer that has metastasized or recurred. It has not been approved for early-stage-HER2-positive breast cancer yet because of side effects.

Anti-Angiogenesis Drugs

One drug type that may help treat breast cancer in the future is anti-angiogenesis drugs. These drugs block the formation of blood vessels that feed tumors and therefore help them grow. Anti-angiogenesis drugs have shown promise in patients with colon cancer. They are also currently being studied in patients with advanced breast cancer.