RT Book, Section A1 Rugo, Hope S. A2 Kuerer, Henry M. SR Print(0) ID 6417687 T1 Chapter 92. Metastatic Breast Cancer T2 Kuerer's Breast Surgical Oncology YR 2010 FD 2010 PB The McGraw-Hill Companies PP New York, NY SN 978-0-07-160178-8 LK accesssurgery.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=6417687 RD 2024/03/28 AB Although significant advances have been made in the treatment of breast cancer resulting in continued improvement in survival, more than 40,000 women will die of the disease this year.1 Approximately 30% of women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer will develop a systemic metastatic recurrence, with only a few of these patients achieving long-term survival with standard chemotherapy.2 In addition, 5% to 10% of women are diagnosed with metastatic disease at first presentation of breast cancer. Overall survival (OS) for patients with metastatic disease has changed little over the last 50 years, despite a marked increase in the choice of active agents for treatment. The availability of new targeted biological therapies, particularly trastuzumab for HER-2/neu overexpressing disease, as well as new hormonal and chemotherapeutic agents, has clearly improved outcome for patients with certain biological subtypes of this disease. However, the concept of treating metastatic breast cancer as a chronic disease is still largely theoretical because most patients will survive less than 5 years following diagnosis.