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World J Exp Med. Jun 20, 2024; 14(2): 92558
Published online Jun 20, 2024. doi: 10.5493/wjem.v14.i2.92558
Eribulin in breast cancer: Current insights and therapeutic perspectives
Oliver Oey, Wynne Wijaya, Andrew Redfern
Oliver Oey, Faculty of Medicine, University of Western Australia, Nedlands 6009, Australia
Oliver Oey, Department of Medical Oncology, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Nedlands 6009, WA, Australia
Wynne Wijaya, Department of Oncology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
Wynne Wijaya, Department of Internal Medicine, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Sleman 55281, Indonesia
Andrew Redfern, Department of Medical Oncology, Fiona Stanley Hospital, Murdoch 6150, WA, Australia
Author contributions: Oey O and Wijaya W contributed equally to this work; Oey O and Wijaya W performed literature searching and wrote the manuscript; Redfern A supervised and contributed substantial inputs for the improvement of the manuscript; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Wynne Wijaya, MD, Master’s Student, Department of Oncology, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus Research Building, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom. wynne.wijaya@oncology.ox.ac.uk
Received: January 29, 2024
Revised: February 21, 2024
Accepted: March 20, 2024
Published online: June 20, 2024
Processing time: 141 Days and 19.2 Hours
Abstract

Eribulin is a non-taxane synthetic analogue approved in many countries as third-line treatment for the treatment of patients with metastatic breast cancer. In addition to its mitotic property, eribulin has non-mitotic properties including but not limited to, its ability to induce phenotypic reversal of epithelial to mesenchymal transition, vascular remodelling, reduction in immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment. Since approval, there has been a surge in studies investigating the application of eribulin as an earlier-line treatment and also in combination with other agents such as immunotherapy and targeted therapy across all breast cancer sub-types, including hormone receptor positive, HER2 positive and triple negative breast cancer, many demonstrating promising activity. This review will focus on the application of eribulin in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer across all subtypes including its role as an earlier-line agent, its toxicity profile, and potential future directions.

Keywords: Eribulin, Breast cancer, Metastatic breast cancer, Chemotherapy, Efficacy, Safety

Core Tip: Eribulin is a non-taxane chemotherapeutic agent which is utilised for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer patients who have progressed after 2-3 lines of taxane or anthracycline-based regimen. Eribulin’s non-mitotic properties which include its anti-mesenchymal, immunomodulating and vascular remodelling features could make it a perfect candidate in becoming adjuncts to standard treatment regimen for breast cancer across different subtypes. In the era of targeted therapy, immunotherapy and antibody-drug conjugates, we review current evidence to elucidate whether eribulin still has a role to play in earlier and later-line settings both as a single agent and in combination with other agents in patients with metastatic breast cancer across all subtypes of breast cancer.