Howard A. "Skip" Burris, III, MD, chief medical officer and executive director, Drug Development Program, Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Nashville, Tennessee, discusses the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitor everolimus (Afinitor) for patients with HER2-negative breast cancer.

Burris believes that the addition of everolimus to the endocrine therapy combination strategy is going to be very important for managing patients with breast cancer. A substantial uptake in its use in the clinic has already been observed, since the FDA approval in July.

Targeting mTOR has caused a great deal of enthusiasm and sparked new clinical trials, Burris explains. He adds that everolimus will likely be the go-to therapy for patients receiving aromatase inhibitors who have progressed slowly or have not experienced a visceral crisis.

As more research is conducted, Burris expects everolimus will eventually move forward in many sequences as its efficacy is demonstrated both in the clinic and trials.