A dickens tale of the treatment of advanced breast cancer: the past, the present, and the future.

Metastatic breast cancer (MBC), a usually incurable disease, continues to vex physicians and patients. Recent decades have seen great improvements in the treatment of MBC, based on the availability of novel targeted therapeutics and more standard chemotherapeutic agents. This article describes the goals of therapy for MBC, the progress made against MBC in recent decades, the current standard of care, and the ongoing efforts of basic and translational researchers to transfer the fruits of modern scientific discovery to patients in the clinic.