Major advancements in metastatic breast cancer treatment: when expanding options means prolonging survival

In the last years we have witnessed tremendous advancements in the treatment landscape of metastatic breast cancer (MBC), leading to a progressive prolongation of progression-free survival and, in some cases, also of overall survival. This led to a substantial increase of advanced disease treatability. In the present review we comprehensively and critically describe the most significant progresses in the therapeutic scenario of MBC according to BC subtype. In particular, we reviewed studies reporting practice-changing data in hormone receptor-positive/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative, HER2-positive and triple-negative BC, with also a hint to BRCA-related tumors and the emerging HER2-low-positive category. •The treatment landscape of MBC has progressively widened in the last years.•Several therapeutic strategies proved to be capable of prolonging survival of patients with MBC.•We comprehensively reviewed practice-changing data on MBC treatment according to BC subtype.